Car Craftmanship: The Ruf CTR-1 Yellowbird

With sheer unbridled power, it hurtles over the asphalt. But the yellow supercar is no Porsche. It's a RUF. Our car has the performance of a hypercar. The CTR anniversary. RUF's latest flagship is built completely by hand. There are no robots or assembly lines at Germany's most exclusive carmaker. Not many can do this. Those who work here are among the best in the industry and build one of the most powerful serially produced vehicles in the world. Everything here is pushed to the limit and beyond. It has to be able to take it, right? If the engine can't take it, it isn't good enough. RUF. 80 years of sports car manufacturing at the limit. The infamous Green Hell. And the birthplace of a sports car legend. The RUF CTR, because of its yellow shell, dubbed simply Yellow Bird by the American motoring press of the time. At this lavishly filmed promotional event, the 469 horsepower, 1,222 kilogram light supercar took the crown of fastest production vehicle in the world. Driver Stefan Rosa accelerates the supercar to a top speed of 342 kilometers per hour. Not wearing a race suit though, but casually dressed in jeans, polo shirt and loafers. The video of this record-breaking lap is seen hundreds of thousands of times around the globe and is still the stuff of legends to this day. Now, over 30 years later, the sports car has lost none of its appeal. At its heart lies a tuned, air-cooled 3.6 liter six-cylinder Porsche flat engine with two turbochargers. In 2017, RUF marked the anniversary of the Yellow Bird with a completely redeveloped successor to the legendary CTR. With a sticker price of 850,000 euros, the CTR anniversary is not exactly a steal. And this is where it's built. Pfaffenhausen, southern Germany. The Allgäu-based company RUF has a long tradition of hand-building vehicles going back to 1974. Well over 1,800 hours are devoted to each unique specimen. Superlative craftsmanship and attention to detail are a matter of pride. The specialists build an average of just 30 cars a year and the waiting lists are correspondingly long. The third generation of the RUF family now works at the company too. Son Marcel and daughter Aloisa. Company boss Alois RUF places particular importance on his developments, offering as pure a driving experience as possible. It's an analog vehicle, which means there are no significant driving aids. The only thing we have in the new car is ABS. That didn't exist yet back then, of course. Drifts like this are still possible, however. The hard data show what the CTR anniversary is capable of. The water-cooled 3.6-litre twin-turbo flat-six engine produces at least 710 horsepower. This catapults the 1,250-kilogram light supercar from 0 to 100 kilometres per hour in just 3.5 seconds. And the speedometer needle doesn't stop climbing until it passes 360 kilometres per hour. For the €850,000 base price, buyers get a stripped-down racing machine devoid of frills. No radio, no navigation system, no heated seats. Every gram is saved in the interest of driving performance. A car from us has to feel like you're directly connected with it. Car and driver have to become one. I imagine it's similar for horses and riders, that a good jockey feels connected with his horse as well. That's the way it should be. The result is an uncompromising driving machine that is in a class of its own. Besides the mighty engine, a key contribution here is made by the rigorous adherence to the principle of lightweight but stable design. Monocoque plus front and rear ends, inspired by motorsport. An ultra-stiff monocoque made from carbon and steel forms the basis. When assembling these passenger safety cells, the mechanics take great care not to damage or scratch the precision carbon. It wouldn't impair the stability of the high-performance material, but the pattern of the carbon fibers is a real eye-catcher. Obviously, it's important that we protect everything, because as you can see, it has a beautiful pattern, the carbon, and it should stay like that. You can think of it like the paint job on a car. If you get a scratch on it, you can't get it out again. Dozens of holes are machined into the carbon monocoque. A total of 54 stud bolts will be screwed in here that later hold the frame of the sports car together, even at top speeds in excess of 350 km per hour. The threaded bolts are extremely stable custom fabrications whose strength was precisely calculated beforehand by the RUF developers. The bolts are precisely tightened using a torque wrench. In Pfaffenhausen, assembly work that would be done by armies of robots in large-scale production operations is diligently performed by expert hand. The welded steel space frame of the front end is held in place by just 16 bolts. The men have to unite the individual parts perfectly in order for the structure to handle the extreme forces generated while driving. Everyone in the small team knows what's riding on them. Each task is performed with routine precision. They tighten one bolt after the other. The team then mounts the roll cage to the carbon monocoque. The load-bearing structure of the sports car is slowly pieced together. The body is supported primarily by this internal skeleton. Additional stiffness and stability are provided by the ultralight outer shell that is attached to it. The steel frame for the rear end is designed to be especially robust. This is where the 710 hp engine will later sit and propel the entire weight of the CTR over the asphalt with its 880 Nm of torque. Two mechanics effortlessly carry the 12 kg light carbon skin of the CTR over to the chassis and attach it. In the space of a few seconds, the bare frame is transformed into a CTR with its distinctive silhouette. All of the exterior body parts like fenders, bumpers, hoods and doors weigh a mere 40 kg in total. This shaves dozens of kilograms off the weight compared to a conventionally built vehicle. It's really amazing being able to build something like this. And it's only afterwards that you can see what you've actually created. Not many get to do this. Next, body maker Simon and his colleagues fit the remaining parts like fenders, doors, hoods and bumpers. It takes the mechanics two weeks to complete the construction of the body, and it's all done by hand. The benefits of a lightweight design are apparent during assembly too. Many jobs can be performed by a single worker, simply because the parts are so light. No comparison to a conventional mass-produced hybrid chassis, where robots and heavy equipment would be used at this point. The shape of the Yellowbird is now clearly recognizable. It's obvious that a Porsche 911 served as the template for the CTR. With the blessing of Stuttgart, of course. Porsche wanted to cease production of the 911. The plan was to phase it out in 1978-79. And there was a huge outcry and protest in the Porsche community, who naturally all wanted another 911. I said, if there's not going to be one, we'll build it instead. So I reassured everyone. At the time, there was great demand for special 911s that were no longer in Porsche's program. And so we built them. Over the next 40 years, Alois Huf and his colleagues built vehicles and prototypes specially developed for customers. Always on the condition that the focus be on driving pleasure and performance. No luxury equipment. No frills. It's on this passion for purism that the carmaker has built its reputation. At the same time, the Pfaffenhausen-based sports carmaker has increasingly distanced itself from the Porsche group. An agreement was reached back then. Porsche said, you need to become an independent manufacturer. Because we at Porsche no longer want to have our name behind the extreme performance the cars are capable of. You need to be responsible for their safety. So it's legally distinct. So that's how we became a manufacturer in our own right in 1981. After two weeks constructing the body, the lightweight CTR chassis takes a trip to the in-house paint shop. There, the next team of specialists gets to work. The Huf painters begin by getting the carbon fiber skin of the supercar into shape. Special attention is paid to ensuring the gap conditions are just right. They spend days sanding down the preformed outer shell until every unevenness in the material is completely eliminated. Because here, too, the goal is perfection. It sometimes takes 35 hours of handwork before the shell is ready for painting. It requires a great deal of manual skill, a good sense of touch. You have to feel and use your eyes. Gaps, red eye, you have to see them as a whole and have a trained eye for any imperfections in the surface. The paint specialists still work in pretty much the same way as at the dawn of the automotive industry. The only thing that has changed since then is the material. The carbon and glass fiber composites are handled exactly the same as metal substrates. Though there are sometimes shapes or structures that have to be sanded down by hand that you don't get with sheet metal. But in terms of coat build-up, we don't use a different primer or apply them differently. If you're force-drying between coats, you may have to use a different temperature than you would with a full metal body, though. The small paint shop, with its staff of five, is set up to be able to paint up to 30 car bodies a year. The spray booth in Pfaffenhausen receives a steady stream of new paint. First, the add-on components are given their first coat. A spray filler that the painters use to close the fine pores in the carbon parts. In this way, they can also even out the slightly irregular surface structure of the materials so that it's completely smooth later. It takes a worker around three hours to apply a coat of paint to the CTR. We do everything by hand here. We have to. The volume is too small to justify using robots or automation. We're still a traditional small manufacturer. And that's just what the illustrious customers appreciate and expect when they order a RUF. For their 850,000 euros, they can choose any color they want from head painter Mike. But deciding on a color can be an overwhelming experience in Pfaffenhausen. This is our paint mixing room. With the paint manufacturers we work with and using our computer software, paint mixing scale and the substances, we're able to mix up to 275,000 colors. We start with these color swatches. So if a customer decides he's interested in a metallic blue, we let him take a look at this and at that point it's already too much for most people. In order not to drown in the endless sea of colors, in the end the majority of customers decide to go for the legendary original color. The yellow of the 1987 classic. Even if its name doesn't quite fit the character of the 700 horsepower supercar. I click here on blossom yellow. The special mixing formula SMF RUF is our version of this mixing formula. And these are the individual water-based paint components. So, for a liter, we need 600 grams of colorless binder, 290 grams of yellow, plus orange, ochre tones and a blue. And the original yellow bird still looks great in blossom yellow. Back then, in 1987, such a bright color was still an absolute novelty outside of motorsport. In the 1980s a lot of vehicles were produced in dark colors and the photographers weren't at all happy about it. The photographers always wanted a bright color. So the press cars were often very red. And we said, oh no, another red car. As the plan was to paint the car Indian red and the paint was practically in the spray gun. And I made a last-minute decision. I said, you know what, there's a really great yellow that no one will be familiar with. We ought to give that a try. Why don't we make it yellow? And we came up with blossom yellow. That's how the yellow bird got its name. It was a nickname. Given to it by the photographers. In the paint shop, master Mike Klevesahl gets to work. The CTR in the booth isn't being painted in blossom yellow, but a metallic blue. Two coats of spray filler and primer are followed by two to three layers of colored base coat. By the time the clear coat lacquer is applied at the end, the workers in the paint shop will have applied up to ten layers to the carbon body. Consequently, around 200 hours are spent just painting a CTR. This is how sports cars have been painted here since the family business first opened its doors. Alois Ruff Sr. founded a car workshop in Pfaffenhausen, Bavaria in 1939. After the Second World War, the family expanded the business, adding a gas station and then, in 1955, a separately run bus company. The Ruffs have been building vehicles themselves since the very beginning. Father and son Alois became Porsche enthusiasts from early on. They gained their first experiences in servicing and maintaining them in the 1960s. We got our first Porsche because my father was out driving his bus, which, incidentally, he also built himself. While he was doing his tour, he was overtaken by a Porsche. After overtaking him, the Porsche driver lost control, rolled over twice and ended up in a ditch. My father stopped and wanted to help the man. He asked if everything was okay and told him not to worry about his car, I'll tow it. I have a car dealership. And what happened? My father bought the accident-damaged vehicle and repaired it. And that was our first Porsche. I was 13 at the time. Then, after owning the car for almost a year, we were driving through Munich one Sunday afternoon and were stopped by a young man. He was a student. He knocked on the window and said he wanted to talk to us. I want to buy your car, he said. I have the money in my room. I'll buy it from you today. I'll give you the money. We'll sign a sales contract. That was the most unbelievable deal my father ever made. Because every car sale was always an effort. And that was just so easy. Following the early death of his father in 1974, Alois Ruf took over the workshop and made it what it is today. The long-standing company has settled right next to the family home with the old gas station. Once the painters have finished with the body, the mechanics begin the fiddly task of assembling the car. Here, too, every job is performed by hand. With great attention to detail, they build each car from scratch. The assembly process begins, as always, with the lines and hoses. These here are the brake lines. The first job when the chassis comes back from the paint shop is to install all the lines. The brake lines, fuel lines, clutch hoses, etc. Because they're the components that run directly along the walls, so that the other parts can be installed later on. The specialists meticulously install each and every line. How much time they have for the job is not stipulated at Ruf. Work on high-performance cars like the CTR should under no circumstances be done under pressure. And so, the brake servo is installed without any rush, too. The power for the brake servo is taken from the engine intake manifold and controlled via a butterfly valve. If this component were to fail, applying the brakes would require a great deal more force, which would likely exceed what a driver could apply using his leg muscles. It would take a maximum of effort to depress the 3D-printed titanium brake pedal at all. Inconceivable at 350 km per hour. After fitting the printed pedals, the mechanic installs the suspension. Like so much of the CTR, these assemblies are proprietary Ruf designs, too. Over 30 years of experience and development work have gone into the complicated assembly in the wheel well. Next door, this green Ruf is about to be cabled up. The 15 kg wiring harness, comprising hundreds of cables and dozens of plugs, can only be installed in the vehicle in a specific way. Fiddly work that requires a great deal of experience and patience. The special method of construction of the monocoque causes another issue. Unfortunately, the carbon it's made from doesn't conduct electricity. We're now running the ground wire and the test lead for the rear end. Because the monocoque is made from carbon fiber, we can't make the electrical connection via the bodywork, so we have to install a cable. No metal means no natural ground, so it has to be artificially created using an extra cable. The technicians install around 800 cables with an average length of 1.5 m. The total length of the wiring harness is roughly 1.2 km. Navigating it through the body of the sports car is physically demanding work that takes 3 hours. A Hoof's brake system is the driver's life insurance. Which is why nothing is left off the shelf here either. The brake calipers with their ceramic shoes are normally only used in motorsport. They have a longer service life and are lighter. This cardboard box contains another distinctive feature of the CTR. At first glance, its shock absorbers appear completely standard. But the mechanics fit the high-performance shocks horizontally rather than vertically as in normal cars. The pushrod system is also used by Formula One race cars. And its main benefit is improved aerodynamics. Most normal vehicles use MacPherson struts. That means the damper is installed vertically from the hub carrier to the fender or vehicle body. In this case, we're using a pushrod system which lies horizontally. This results in much firmer handling and we can better tune the vehicle dynamics. The pushrod sits between the suspension and the actual shock absorber. When the car drives over a bump, the wheel and pushrods are deflected upward and transfer the energy to the shock absorber. In the workshop, a mechanic is currently operating on the heart of the CTR. The water-cooled 3.6-litre twin-turbo flat-six engine, developed in-house. We assemble the engine using a specially cast block and many of the parts we use are exclusive to us too. So it doesn't have all that much in common with a production engine in terms of design. Around 1,000 parts have to be assembled by hand. It takes one mechanic 14 days to build an engine like this. At RUF, every engine has its own personal creator, strictly according to the philosophy of one man, one machine. Carlo knows the blueprint for the flat-six by heart. He builds up to 30 of them each year. It's highly unlikely that he'll get his fingers on a V-engine in the foreseeable future. The flat-six units have been continuously developed by the engineers for decades and offer many benefits. The pistons move this way, whereas in a V-engine they move like this. So the weight sits much lower in the car. And because it's flatter, we can make the roof lower too. This improves the aerodynamics. In order to get the flat-six engine really singing, it's fitted with two turbochargers. The intake manifold must be absolutely airtight, as this is where the boost pressure is created that will later give the flat-six at least 710 horsepower. In contrast to the air-cooled Yellowbird from 1987, nowadays a water-cooled engine is used due to the enormous heat generated. Power is energy over time. And the energy in a combustion engine is provided by the fuel. We burn fuel, so a lot of heat is produced within the engine that we have to somehow get rid of. With 720 horsepower, a lot more heat is generated, and it's easier to cool the engine using water than with air. Next, the mechanic fits the oil tank to the CTR engine. In engines that are subjected to high acceleration and extreme cornering forces, a special lubrication system is used. As with an airplane or off-road vehicle, the Yellowbird needs an extra pump and a tank in order to force much greater volumes of oil through its engine in order to lubricate and cool it. I've just fitted the oil tank. Every Porsche engine has one due to the fact that the engine has a dry sub, that is, it doesn't have an oil pan. This is often the case with sports cars, because the oil is actively pumped to where it's needed, and there's always oil pressure, even when cornering hard, which is crucial. Now I just need to fit the muffler at the front, and the engine is ready to head to the dynamometer. A final gasket for the turbochargers and the mighty exhaust manifold is installed. It aggregates the exhaust gases, which then drive a small turbine wheel in the turbochargers. This then supplies the engine with compressed fresh air. The result? More power. The original plan was to celebrate the Yellowbird's 30th birthday in 2017 by constructing just 30 new CTR anniversary models. But the huge demand for the cult sports car led to RUF deciding to build at least 50, by hand, and of course, focused on delivering the purest driving experience. You don't need a radio, you have an engine that sounds wonderful, so you can enjoy that instead. The minimalist specification includes things like air conditioning, that's a must nowadays, so our car has air conditioning. Our instrument panel still looks like the one in the original 911 when it was launched in 1964 with the five dials. And I don't think this is something we can abandon. It's become a tradition. Both of Alois RUF's children work at the company too. Son Marcel trained as a car mechanic and then studied mechanical engineering and business administration at the Technical University in Munich. Today he deals with the vehicle's electronics and lighting systems. I've just powered up the vehicle for the first time. We've connected the batteries, so now each of the ECUs are booting for the first time too. I'm now going to check the communications by connecting the diagnostic plug, and then I can use my software to see if each ECU is responding and sending and receiving what it should. Like checking the central locking system to ensure the doors lock and unlock, and that the remote controls and the key here work properly. And then there are basic things like the ABS, fuel pump, etc. I make sure all the components that have to talk with one another are calibrated and programmed. Because you can't do without electronics completely. In the years since 1987, a handful of relays, capacitors and resistors have become a dozen ECUs. These are the individual ECUs that identify themselves via their respective addresses. Various values are transmitted here. So if I see a message contains a string of zeros, for instance, I know this ECU isn't ready yet. And when I see, like here, a continuous stream of changing messages, I know that the ECU is communicating, it's working, and I can move on to the next one. Marcel painstakingly checks that each vehicle is working perfectly before being shipped to the customer. As a teenager, he too was taken by his father's passion for fast cars. And it hasn't let go since. I spent two weeks working here in the engine building shop during the summer holidays when I was 13. And I became more and more fascinated and interested in the technical side. Whenever I was with my father, I would keep peppering him with questions about how the heating system works. And why do I need a turbocharger? And why do we have two turbochargers in our cars? I gradually realized that this is what I want to do with my life. And I decided to train as an automotive mechatronics engineer. So, Alois Sr. can rest assured that the future of his company is in safe hands. The third generation of the RUF family is already waiting in the wings. Now, the upholsterer gets started on the Yellowbird's interior. As soon as he applies the spray adhesive to the roof lining, the clock starts ticking. The specialist only has a few minutes to install the lining above his head before the glue sets. Performing upholstery work inside the vehicle is something of a rarity in the automotive world. All unnecessary backing materials were eliminated in the CTR in order to save weight. So, the roof lining is not applied to a plastic board, but entirely to the vehicle roof. This means hours of handwork for the two RUF upholsterers. It takes almost 10 square meters of Nappa leather and 50 hours of painstaking work to upholster the passenger compartment of a CTR. The interior is of particular importance. It is, after all, what the owner will see most. What the upholsterers are capable of is often showcased in the special editions. Besides the classic Yellowbird, the RUF family also develops new and sometimes very unique concept cars, like the Rodeo Rally concept vehicle. In keeping with the theme, the four-wheel drive sports car is equipped with a leather-covered bull bar, a lasso, a spade and increased wheelbase. Spade and longer wheelbase make it the perfect desert racer. The interior is trimmed in luxurious leather. This vehicle is still a one-off, though. Whether Alois RUF ends up producing the Rodeo in greater numbers depends on the interest of potential customers. In the workshop, things are a little less wild. The assembly seats used by the mechanics are removed to make space for a pair of true lightweights. The special in-house development, named Lollipop, is a real highlight. The lightweight carbon fiber racing seats weigh just 6 kilograms apiece. As such, they follow the lightweight construction philosophy of the Pfaffenhausen carmaker. With its systematic embodiment of lightweight design, the RUF CTR is one of the fastest and most exclusive supercars in the world. The fact that there's still a classic Porsche hidden within the all-new successor to the 87 Yellowbird has a reason. Company boss Alois RUF fell in love with the iconic 911 almost 60 years ago. In the eyes of the uncompromising carmaker, this is how a true sports car ought to look, despite the many innovations and new materials. Old school in the best sense. I was with my father in 64. I still remember exactly when it was April. It had poured down. We were overtaken by a car that I'd never seen or heard before. And through this cloud of spray and water hitting the windscreen, I saw the profile of the car. I said to my father, that's the new Porsche. And that's the first time I heard a 911 engine. This sound, the unique snarl of this flat six, is a sound no other car in the world ever had. There's nothing like it. It gives me goosebumps. The experience shaped my entire future. This childhood infatuation grew into a passion that persists to this day. The CTR's engine is now ready for its durability test. The mechanics release it from the assembly stand. The 710 horsepower flat six engine then heads to one of the two in-house dynamometers. It takes Carlos a good 90 minutes to prepare his engine in the test booth for the coming ordeal. He installs a water intercooler for the two turbochargers, because the engine will soon be getting extremely hot. It will spend the first 90 minutes in a running-in mode, where it will be operated at various engine speeds and load torques. This is followed by up to two hours under full load. Afterwards, they will know for certain how much horsepower and torque this beast really has. In this way, the customers receive a vehicle that has already been fully run-in and will effortlessly handle a kickdown on the freeway. At the end, the mechanic fills the oil tank with a special oil. This is 10W60. It's a dedicated dynamometer oil that we only use for engines that we're testing, and we replace it after every eight engines or so. We fit the engine with a new oil filter after each performance test as a matter of course, too. The engine builder then switches on the dynamometer and starts up his test candidate. The 3.6 liter flat six springs to life on the first attempt. The 14 days of painstaking handwork were worth the effort. Carlos can tell whether everything is okay with the engine just by its sound. There's still some rattling here and there, but that's perfectly normal shortly after birth. So far, so good. The rattling you can hear in the background are the hydraulic tappets that aren't filled with oil yet. That should disappear over the next 10 to 15 minutes once they've filled. Once the door is closed, the punishment can begin. The two colleagues begin the actual test run. From their console, they can remotely control both the mounted engine and the entire dynamometer. It basically works like a giant brake. The CTR motor drives a turbine wheel that is immersed in water. The dynamometer technicians can adjust the resistance the engine has to overcome by changing the water level. This enables us to determine the torque, and the software on the computer uses the torque to calculate the power output as well. And it's very high. RUF guarantees that the CTR units will have at least 710 horsepower. During the test run, the technicians keep a close eye on all the engine parameters. Temperature is good. Lambda is good. Yeah, everything looks good. We can run a full power. All right, let's start the performance test. Following the warm-up comes the risky part of the test run. The technicians open the throttle. Little by little, they increase the engine speed. The engine has to work so hard that after a few minutes, the exhaust manifolds start glowing. However, the two technicians show no mercy. They want to see at least 710 horsepower on the display. The yellow glow of the manifolds is a familiar sight for them, and no one in Pfaffenhausen stops and stares in amazement anymore. The pipes are at around 1,000 degrees Celsius as the endurance test slowly comes to an end after two hours. The new twin-turbo flat-six has survived its baptism by fire and delivered tangible results. So, we achieved 727 horsepower at 6,900 rpm and 913 Nm of torque at 4,000 rpm. That's awesome. Perfect. The stress we just put the engine through on the dynamometer would be almost impossible to reproduce on a normal road. You'd have to thrash the car around a racetrack to get things glowing like that. It has to be able to take it, right? If the engine can't take it, it isn't good enough. A clear statement. If an engine wants to leave this room, it must be able to hold its own against a Formula One car. And it shouldn't leak either. I'm totally satisfied. The engine is dry. We'll leave it mounted overnight, and if there still aren't any drips on the engine tomorrow morning, we'll take it down and build it into the car. The specialists have outdone themselves yet again and squeezed 17 horsepower more out of the engine than guaranteed by RUF. Company boss Alois RUF returns the world's fastest 1987 production car to its parking spot – in the company museum. This is where the family's private collection and exclusive vehicles of good friends are housed. Perfectly air-conditioned and cozily warm in winter. The location of the hallowed hall is top secret. The 87 Yellowbird prototype alone is probably worth a seven-figure sum. It's the only specimen still in the possession of the family. The hype surrounding the brand all started with this yellow cult car. Indirectly. RUF became really famous somewhat later at the end of the 90s due to the Sony PlayStation. Because another video game already had the rights to the Porsche 911, Sony was on the lookout for a powerful equivalent for their game Gran Turismo. And the RUF CTR was just what they were looking for. The success was spectacular. The game sold around 80 million copies, securing the popularity of the Yellowbird in the process. It all began with the 1989 film Faszination RUF Yellowbird at the Nürburgring. There was a Mr. Yamauchi at Sony, and he developed his game based on this story, how the Yellowbird drives around the Nürburgring. The name RUF has been known the world over ever since. It sometimes happens when I'm traveling to the States that I get asked by the officer at passport control, are you the Yellowbird, RUF? They pronounce my name RUF, of course. Then they add, my son is playing your car on the PlayStation. Such things can happen. Alois RUF is convinced that the new CTR anniversary will achieve similar fame someday too. The final quality control of every vehicle is done by the boss himself. Not even the smallest of imperfections escapes his trained eye. In addition to developing their own cars, RUF Automobile has other areas of activity too, such as servicing and maintaining customer vehicles and converting 911s to RUF Porsches. The company premises in Pfaffenhausen are host to a colorful gathering of all generations of the Porsche brand. This model is set to become something very special. A customer from abroad thinks his grey Porsche Carrera isn't racy and extravagant enough. Over the coming weeks, the specialists will convert it into a supercar, à la RUF. I would say that we spend roughly 50% of the time on our new cars, the other half on restorations and conversions like this. The customer-standard Carrera will be given a completely new outer shell. The doors, roof, bumpers, front and engine hood will be replaced by carbon fiber elements. This will shave almost 100 kilograms from its weight. The air-cooled Porsche Carrera engine will be given a power boost in the form of twin turbochargers, resulting in around 590 horsepower. It's what we would call a resto-mod. That is, half restoration, because everything is being renewed down to the last screw, and half modification because it's getting a different engine, gearbox and wheels. A restoration with modification like this can sometimes take 10 weeks and in this case cost up to 100,000 euros. Another passion of the Pfaffenhausener tuning professionals is the high-quality restoration of Porsche classics. No wonder, and to be expected, given their 60 years of Porsche experience. The mechanics are currently tending to the restoration and maintenance of several wonderful customer-owned 356s. Many a rust bucket is restored to its former eye-catching glory here. Alois Ruf's daughter often helps out in the restoration shop too. Aloisa Ruf works on the cars alongside her studies. She grew up with her father's passion for everything to do with sports cars. The old treasures are even closer to her heart than the modern vehicles built by her family. She appreciates the simple and robust technology that is ideal for learning the fundamentals of automotive construction. They are very analogue and very straightforward too. If something breaks, I know what I need to repair. Anyway, it's much simpler without all the technology. I mean, our sports cars are still very analogue, which makes them simpler as well. But I just wanted to delve a bit into the history of Porsche to understand it better, so I can also pass on this knowledge. But Aloisa does work on the family's modern supercars too. She's a welcome guest and valued colleague in the workshop. Taking a hands-on approach has always been important for the Rufs of all generations. It's the only way a family business can run. The big moment has arrived. The engine from the dynamometer has cooled down and can now be built into a CTR anniversary. The mechanics carefully install the 160 kg unit into the rear of the car. Despite the compact design of the flat-six engine, it's still a tight squeeze. Keep going. A little bit more. Okay, keep going. Keep going. Stop. The dimensions of the rear space frame are such that the engine only just fits. There isn't much room for maneuvering between the pushrod system, steel tubes and cables. Once again, finesse is called for. With a bit of jiggling, the mechanics manage to fit the engine in perfectly. Done. After 20 minutes, the engine is in place and the men secure it with bolts. Then they connect up the hoses and cables for the electronic engine management system. Yet another of the 50 anniversary vehicles is nearing completion. In 1987, just 29 Yellowbirds were produced here. Two versions of the Ruf CTR. 30 years of automotive engineering development separate them. The engine in particular has changed significantly. Currently, inside the 2017 CTR beats a water-cooled heart. Back then, Porsche engines were all air-cooled. And there was an air duct here, and an alternator in the middle here. Back then, we could only see the fan, though, as the alternator was always hidden. And now, we've adopted a similar concept. So we keep the original look, and it fits with the car, even though it's now water-cooled. Not air-cooled, unfortunately, but it's fantastic as well, of course. In terms of design, it has a bit of an old-school look, like the car's exterior. The two generations closely resemble one another, but you couldn't confuse them. Which of the two you find more attractive is a matter of taste. Many of the details on the CTR anniversary model have been reworked by the specialists at Ruf. It was especially important to them that the racy appeal of the original Yellowbird be preserved. Then, as now, the designers paid particular attention to minimizing weight, which forms the basis for excellent handling characteristics. And as far as performance is concerned, there's almost nothing between them, despite the difference in power of roughly 250 horsepower. The modern Yellowbird may no longer be a contender for fastest production vehicle in the world, but when it comes to pure driving pleasure, it can still take a few titles. Before it can leave the factory and Pfaffenhausen, the yellow supercar first has to be weighed. After all, the car's lightweight construction is a decisive factor in its high performance. So a few hidden kilos are the last thing they want. A new CTR anniversary is allowed to weigh a maximum of 1,250 kilograms. The slight excess weight is down to the fuel. The visit to the scales is ticked off the list. One of the 50 CTR anniversary supercars is finally complete after over 1,800 hours of handwork. The €850,000 sports car will now be transported to the nearest airport or port by truck. Because somewhere in the world, a sports car enthusiast has been waiting anxiously for months for his exclusive hand-built supercar made in Germany. RUF, a small family business in its second generation, makes one of the fastest production vehicles in the world. In 80 years, a small workshop with a gas station has grown to become one of the most exclusive car makers in Germany. And everything is done painstakingly by hand. The love and passion for powerful supercars in Porsche Look is unlikely to lose any of its powerful appeal in the future either. We'll have to see how things develop. When everyone's driving electric cars, we'll probably have to make another yellowbird. With the sports car manufacturer from Pfaffenhausen, anything is possible.