Ruf Automobile

The company rose to fame when in 1987, its Porsche-derived CTR reached 339 km/h, surpassing the Ferrari F40's claimed top speed of 321 km/h.

• Name — Ruf Automobile GmbH • Type — Private (GmbH & Co. KG) • Founded — 1939 • Founder — Alois Ruf Sr. • Hq Location — Pfaffenhausen, Germany • Key People — Alois Ruf Jr. (Chairman) • Industry — Automotive • Products — Automobiles Automotive parts • Illustration — Alois Ruf Jr. (2010)

The company was founded in 1939 in Pfaffenhausen, Germany as "Auto Ruf" by Alois Ruf Sr. as a service garage and was eventually expanded to include a full-service gas station in 1949. Ruf began experimenting with vehicle designs of his own in the late 1940s, and in 1955 designed and built a tour bus, which he marketed around Germany. The positive response it received led to Ruf expanding his business again by starting his own separately owned bus company. Alois Sr.'s involvement in the car industry had a distinct effect on his son, Alois Ruf Jr., who became a sports car enthusiast. In 1960, Alois Jr. began servicing and restoring Porsche automobiles out of his father's garage. Following Alois Sr's. death in 1974, 24-year-old Alois Jr. took control of the business and focused on his passion: Porsche vehicles, and especially the 911. A year later in 1975, the first Ruf-enhanced Porsche came to life. Ruf debuted their first complete model in 1977, a tuned version of Porsche's 911 Turbo with a stroked, 3.3-litre motor. This was followed in 1978 by Ruf's first complete non-turbo Porsche, the 911 SCR. It was a naturally aspirated 911 with a stroked 3.2-litre motor producing 217 horsepower. Numerous customer orders were placed for this vehicle. In 1987, Ruf released the Ruf CTR, which achieved a top speed of 339 km/h in April 1987 and set the record as the world's fastest production car for its time; in 1988 it even reached 342 km/h. Its successor, the 1995 Ruf CTR2, had clocked a top speed of 350 km/h, making it for a brief moment the fastest road-legal production car in the world in the mid '90s, until the McLaren F1 broke the record in 1998 at 241 mph, thus making the CTR2 the second-fastest production car of the decade. However, the CTR2 cost only a fraction of the price of the F1. In April 2007, Ruf released the new CTR3 to celebrate the company's new plant in Bahrain, and as a 20th anniversary celebration of the original CTR and successor to the CTR2. The Ruf CTR3 was designed and engineered in a partnership with the Canadian engineering firm Multimatic. The Ruf CTR3 was Ruf's first entirely unique model, built using their own chassis and body. The CTR3 differs from typical Ruf models in that it uses a Mid-engine design, as opposed to the 911's Rear-engine design. Automotive journalists have compared it to the Porsche 911 GT1, which similarly used a mid-engine layout with a body designed to resemble the Porsche 911. In 2017, Ruf unveiled the Ruf CTR Anniversary at the Geneva Motor Show, 30 years after the launch of the original Ruf CTR. The CTR Anniversary is Ruf's second model to use their own body and chassis design, which was designed and engineered in partnership with German engineering firm Vela Performance. The Ruf CTR Anniversary retains the Porsche 911's rear-engine layout, but does not use any major Porsche components. The only original Porsche parts are windows and windscreen wipers borrowed from the 964 and 993. The CTR Anniversary uses a 3.6-litre water cooled twin-turbocharged flat-6 engine producing, and a custom 7-speed transmission built to Ruf's specification by ZF, and is unrelated to any Porsche transmissions. In 2018, Ruf unveiled the new Ruf SCR. The SCR uses the same in-house body and chassis design from the Ruf CTR Anniversary, although with a normally aspirated engine producing 510 PS (503 hp; 375 kW). The 2018 Ruf SCR borrows its name from the 1978 Ruf SCR.

• CTR3 Evo • CTR Anniversary • SCR 2018 • Rodeo • R Spyder

• Model — Duration of production — Based on — Engine — Top speed — Image • Turbo 3.3 — 1975–1989 — Porsche 930 — 3.3L turbocharged flat-6 303 PS 412 Nm — 262.8 km/h — (On the left) • SCR 3.2 — 1978–1981 — Porsche 911SC — 3.2L naturally aspirated flat-6 215 PS 280 Nm — 255 km/h — • BTR — 1983–1989 — Porsche 930 — 3.4L turbocharged flat-6 375 PS 480 Nm BTR III with Motronic:408 PS 480 Nm — 305 km/h — • CTR "Yellowbird" — 1987–1996 — Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 — 3.4L twin-turbocharged flat-6 469 PS 553 Nm — 342 km/h — • BR2 — 1991–1992 — Porsche 964 Carrera — 3.3L turbocharged flat-6 360 PS 465 Nm — 303 km/h — • CR2 — 1991 — Porsche 964 Carrera 2 — 3.6L naturally aspirated flat-6 290 PS — - — • CR4 — 1991 — Porsche 964 Carrera 4 — 3.6L naturally aspirated flat-6 290 PS — - — • RCT — 1993 — Porsche 964 — 3.6L turbocharged flat-6 370 PS — 305 km/h — • BTR2 — 1993–1998 — Porsche 993 — 3.6L turbocharged flat-6 420 PS 590 Nm — 308 km/h — • CTR2 — 1996–1997 — Porsche 993 — 3.6L twin-turbocharged flat-6 "base model": 520 PS 685 Nm SPORT: 580 PS 780 Nm — 350 km/h — • Turbo R — 1998 — Porsche 993 — 3.6L twin-turbocharged flat-6 496 PS (365 kW; 490 hp) 650 N⋅m (479 lbf⋅ft) — 329 km/h — • 3400S — 1999–2002 — Porsche 986 (Boxster) — 3.4L naturally aspirated flat-6 310 PS 360 Nm — 278 km/h — • RGT — 2000–2004 — Porsche 996 — 3.6L naturally aspirated flat-6 "base model": 385 PS RS: 395 PS — 307 km/h — • RTurbo — 2001–2005 — Porsche 996 — 3.6L twin-turbocharged flat-6 variant 1: 520 PS 740 Nm variant 2: 550 PS 780 Nm — 350 km/h — • 3600S — 2002–2005 — Porsche 986 (Boxster) — 3.6L naturally aspirated flat-6 325 PS 370 Nm — 278 km/h — • Rt 12 — 2004–2012 — Porsche 997 — 3.6L twin-turbocharged flat-6 variant 1: 530 PS variant 2: 560 PS 3.8L twin-turbocharged flat-6 variant 1 ("S" variant): 685 PS variant 2 ("R" variant): 737 PS — over 350 km/h — • RGT — 2005–2011 — Porsche 997 — 3.8L naturally aspirated flat-6 451 PS 420 Nm — - — • RK Spyder — 2005–2008 — Porsche 987 (Boxster) — 3.8L supercharged flat-6 440 PS 470 Nm — over 300 km/h — • RK Coupé — 2006–2007 — Porsche 987c (Cayman) — 3.8L supercharged flat-6 440 PS 470 Nm — over 300 km/h — • R Kompressor — 2006–2009 — Porsche 997 — 3.6L supercharged flat-6 435 PS 470 Nm 3.8L supercharged flat-6 460 PS — - — • CTR3 — 2007–2012 — Ruf-designed body — 3.7L twin-turbocharged flat-6 691 PS 890 Nm — 375 km/h — • 3400 K — 2007–2012 — Porsche 987c (Cayman) — 3.4L supercharged flat-6 400 PS 440 Nm — - — • Rt 12S — 2009–2013 — Porsche 997 — 3.8L twin-turbocharged flat-6 approximated from 3746 cm³ 685 PS 880 Nm — - — • Dakara — 2009 — Porsche 955 (Cayenne) — 4.5L twin-turbocharged V8 600 PS 890 Nm — - — • RGT-8 — 2010 — Porsche 997 — 4.5L naturally aspirated V8 550 PS 500 Nm — 317 km/h — • Rt 12R — 2011–2012 — Porsche 997 — 3.8L twin-turbocharged flat-6 730 PS 940 Nm — - — • RGT-8 — 2012 — Porsche 991 — 4.5L naturally aspirated V8 550 PS 500 Nm — 318 km/h — • Rt 35 — 2012–2013 — Porsche 991 — 3.8L twin-turbocharged flat-6 630 PS 825 Nm — - — • Rt 35 S — 2013–2019 — Porsche 991 — 3.8L twin-turbocharged flat-6 650 PS 840 Nm — - — • Rt 35 Roadster — 2013–2019 — Porsche 991 — 3.8L twin-turbocharged flat-6 630 PS 825 Nm — - — • 3800S — 2013–2017 — Porsche 981 (Boxster) Porsche 981 (Cayman) — 3.8L naturally aspirated flat-6 420 PS 450 Nm — 303 km/h — • RGT 4.2 — 2015–2016 — Porsche 997 GT3 RS 4.0 — 4.2L naturally aspirated flat-6 525 PS 500 Nm — 322 km/h — • RtR — 2015–2017 — Porsche 991 — 3.8L twin-turbocharged flat-6 variant 1: 645 PS variant 2: 802 PS 990 Nm — 350 km/h — • Turbo R Limited — 2016 — Porsche 993 — 3.6L twin-turbocharged flat-6 620 PS 750 Nm — 339 km/h — • SCR 4.2 — 2016 — Ruf-designed body — 4.2L naturally aspirated flat-6 525 PS 500 Nm — 322 km/h — • Ultimate — 2016 — Ruf-designed body — 3.6L twin-turbocharged flat-6 590 PS 720 Nm — 339 km/h —

• Illustration — eRuf Model A The eRuf Model A is an all-electric sports car made by Ruf Automobile. The car is powered by a UQM Technologies propulsion system (a UQM PowerPhase 150). The car has a top speed of 225 km/h and is capable of producing 150 kW and 649 Nm of torque. Estimated range per charge is 250-320 km, depending on performance level, using iron-phosphate, lithium-ion batteries built by Axeon of Great Britain. The power and torque produced by the 3-phase motor can be used to recover almost as much power as it can put out. During coasting the engine works as a generator producing electricity to charge the batteries. Ruf announced that it hoped to begin production of the eRuf in the autumn of 2009. This did not happen, and at the 2009 Geneva Motor Show, Ruf announced a new model, the eRUF Greenster, with limited production planned to commence at the end of 2010.

Ruf models have historically appeared in many large racing video game franchises as a substitute for the Porsche models they are based on due to Porsche's exclusive licensing in video games. Starting with the release of Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed in 2000, Porsche entered an exclusivity deal with Electronic Arts (EA) which meant that Porsche models would only appear in EA's titles, most notably the Need for Speed franchise and the Real Racing series. The only exceptions to this were a number of games in the Forza and Project Gotham Racing series due to sub licensing arrangements made between EA and their games' respective developers, Turn 10 Studios and Bizarre Creations. Other large video game franchises, however, including Gran Turismo, Project CARS, Assetto Corsa, Asphalt, Test Drive, The Crew, Driver: San Francisco, Driveclub and a few Forza games used Ruf models in place of Porsche. This circumvented Porsche's licensing as Ruf is considered by the German government to be a full-fledged manufacturer, and as such Ruf models have unique VINs. The exclusivity deal between Porsche and EA ended in 2016, leading many franchises to stop featuring Ruf models in favor of Porsche. Though it has never been publicly confirmed, it has been speculated that Porsche and RUF can no longer co-exist in games due to interference from Porsche. For instance, in Asphalt 8: Airborne, RUFs and all other vehicles resembling Porsches became unobtainable for purchase in a Porsche-themed update, but users who had them before the update kept them, until an update in 2023 The Crew 2 features both brands, but neither competes against each other due to the game's car classification system. However, Gran Turismo Sport, Gran Turismo 7, Gear.Club Unlimited 2, a few Forza titles and Nitro Nation feature both brands that can compete against each other at any time.