Among the crowded world of boutique modifiers that are associated with Porsche today, one brand stands head and shoulders above the rest: RUF. Not just for its work, nor its history dating back to 1939, but because it isn’t – as everyone else is today – a modifier. It sits in the rare strata above that: a manufacturer. A RUF isn’t actually a 911, but a car of its own, as depicted by the ‘W09’ VIN.
The company’s legend was cemented when it made a viral video before such videos were a marketing tool, in filming its test driver Stefan Roser’s showboating lap in the original CTR around the Nürburgring in 1987. The result was an action-filled lap – actually two – filled with near-constant sideways action and tyre smoke. The 8:05 lap in the car dubbed Yellowbird stood as an unofficial record for years, but the legend of the in-car footage of Stefan’s heroic, on-the-limit pedalling – casually sporting white socks and loafers – lives
