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German mega-tuner RUF has built itself an awesome reminder of just how mental its CTR Yellowbird really was.
What’s a CTR Yellowbird, you ask? Shame on you. RUF’s CTR, more famously known as the Yellowbird, made a trifling 320kW and 550Nm on its down days. No traction control. No PASM dampers.
It was the star of the jaw-dropping vid of Auto Motor Und Sport tester (and Nurburgring ace) Stefan Roser, taking a firm grasp of one of the scariest Porsche offshoots ever created and absolutely ragging it around the entire length of the track. Sideways. All the time. Just Stefan, a spookily fast CTR and a lot of arm-over action.
RUF has come to Geneva this year with what looks for all the world like a 964-era 911 tarted up as a CTR clone – only it’s not. And it’s not even a Porsche. RUF – like HSV – is recognised as a small car maker in its own right, so it’s gone and built a brand new CTR to celebrate 30 years since the Yellowbird was launched on an unsuspecting world.
And it’s stunning.
While there are no Porsche badged bits on the body or chassis (okay, aside from a Porsche-spec dash unit), the powerplant is all Stuttgart. A Mezger-spec 3.6-litre water-cooled twin-turbo at heart, RUF has tuned it to produce 522kW and a faintly terrifying 880Nm – just reference back to that 1200kg weight figure above again.
Oh yeah, it’s still rear-engined, too. Ulp.
Just 30 CTRs will be built, and are priced accordingly; a cool $1,044,000 in our Aussie dollars, or 750,000 Euro. No word on whether Stefan will be given another crack at the car – though wouldn’t that be awesome?
