Anybody else got a hankering for a CTR at the moment?
Discussion
adamt said:
Guy, is the Japanese car on any websites that you could provide a link to?
What are the prices for the narrow bodied cars that are about?
Cheers
No it's not unfortunately.
The green car was 100,000 euros (+tax?). The white one was more from memory.
?
RUF had a CTR advertised on their site last yr. I seem to recall it was red. Unless it was the yr before, been a while since I looked on their website.
I have spent quite a bit of time in this car during its shakedown testing and the interior works much better in person.
all the best
adam
Er Adam, did you mean that to be to DustyC?
Some great pictures are being put onto this thread!
Adam,
If I may, where did the "Yellowbird" moniker come from, if in fact some of the CTR examples were manufactured in colours other than yellow?
I was under the impression that they were all yellow to follow the original car with the NACA ducts in the rear wings.
Thanks
Steve
Adam,
If I may, where did the "Yellowbird" moniker come from, if in fact some of the CTR examples were manufactured in colours other than yellow?
I was under the impression that they were all yellow to follow the original car with the NACA ducts in the rear wings.
Thanks
Steve
More were yellow than any other colour. There were about 29 in total I recall with a similar number of converted cars made. I've heard of green, blue, black, white, red, silver and of course yellow CTRs. Only Alois's own car has the rear Naca ducts on the wings.
I'm sure Adam can give more info.
Here's the background:
Yellow Bird!
By: 911 & Porsche World
Credit: 911 & Porsche World
Posted at: 5:53 PM, Dec 26, 2001
Pause for thought... Here I was, at last, one of very few people outside the Ruf organisation to get behind the wheel of this priceless, unique, record-breaking, twin-turbo 469 bhp monster called the Ruf CTR 911. In a perfect world I would have been in Germany, on dry, glass-smooth roads, hurtling through the Black Forest, the sun shafting mistily through the trees, or maybe hurtling around the Nürburgring. Instead I was stuck in a traffic jam in pouring rain in Reigate.
Yellow Bird was built in 1987 by Ruf in Germany; it has had one careful owner, one hooligan test-driver, has never been raced or rallied, and has covered an estimated 90,000 km.
Yellow Bird is based upon a 3.2 Carrera body. It was developed by Alois Ruf and his team as a prototype to attract publicity and put his company on the map. It succeeded, for Yellow Bird is still a remarkable engineering ambassador for the company. It remains among the most sought after cars in the world and is probably one of the most famous 911s ever built.
So why is it so famous and why so precious? In April 1987 the Ruf CTR 911 was officially designated ‘The Fastest Production Car in the World’. Road & Track magazine had set up a test session and the car, driven by Phil Hill and Paul Frère, beat everything in sight, clocking a maximum speed of 210.6 mph. After that it collected the name Yellow Bird.
In October 1988 the car arrived at Nardo, Italy, for more high speed testing with Auto Motor und Sport. This time it was up against a Ferrari F40 and a Porsche 959. The CTR won again, officially clocking a remarkable 212.5 mph. At one point it actually achieved an unofficial 215 mph! The record book also shows that it will do 0-60 mph in 4 secs, 0-124 mph takes 11.3 secs. This remains, as far as we know, officially the fastest road-going 911 in the world.
So what is Yellow Bird all about? Alois maintains that it is easy enough to design a car to perform on billiard table smooth racing circuits. It is much harder to design one that will behave on public roads, and then get out on a circuit ‘play day’ and blow everything into the weeds! Rest assured, the Ruf CTR will blow almost anything away. It has a 3.4-litre, flat-six, air-cooled, twin-turbo bit of glorious madness tucked neatly under the rear spoiler. With a modest 469 bhp (‘modest’ because it is probably more!) at 5,950 rpm and with a thumping 553 Nm of torque at 5,100 rpm, this car is shatteringly quick! This sort of grunt will see off virtually anything and allows wheel-spin in any gear, even on dry roads. As if this isn’t enough, there is an innocent turbo boost knob tucked away between the seats. 1.1 bar is the ‘norm’ – much more and it no doubt would be very exciting right up to the point where the engine reached meltdown.
The engine management system and electronic fuel injection were built from scratch in conjunction with Bosch. This bird is rather thirsty when driven hard – maybe a modest 8-10 mpg. However, fill the 105 litre (23 gallon) tank to the brim with four star or super unleaded, and drive sensibly and legally (not an easy task), and you will travel around 497 miles (21 mpg) before your next visit to the petrol station.
Obviously, putting all this power down onto the road presented an enormous engineering challenge. The suspension pick-up points remain the same as a standard 911, but the Bilstein gas shock absorbers and roll bars are all modified. There is a mysteriously bent bracing bar between the front turrets; whether it got bent under the strain or was built that way, I never discovered. A limited slip differential looks after some of the back-end traction and it cheerfully clonked occasionally. The gearbox casing comes courtesy of Porsche, but all the internals are down to Ruf. To make sure it holds together under pressure and doesn’t get too hot, the gearbox has its own oil-cooler and electric oil-pump.
It is all very well going this quickly, but stopping Yellow Bird tends to concentrate the mind. Brembo and Ruf worked together to produce huge 330 mm, ventilated, cross-drilled discs and Ruf’s own four-pot calipers; it is a combination that is well up to the task. There is no servo and pedal pressures are high, but I assure you it will stop!
The shell has been modified in a big way; the rain gutters have been removed and the crucial load points and suspension pick-up points have been strengthened. The next brave step was driving the thing, a task best approached with an open mind and a very cautious right foot. As Andy Monaghan of Ruf GB had already demonstrated, it is easy enough to get wheelspin in almost any gear.
By now, after years of abuse and the occasional ‘off’, despite the way it looks in the photos the car is far from concours. Odd panels don’t quite match and the interior is delightfully secondhand. To save weight it has lightweight doors, bonnet and glass and even the front bumper is made of aluminium. There is a deep front lip and rear valance, behind which lurks an oil cooler. There is no sunshine roof! The rear arches are slightly flared to accommodate the 10 x 17 inch rims. There is a discreet Ruf logo on the bonnet and a down-market CTR sticker on the boot. The only clue to the beast’s pedigree lies with those NACA ducts on the rear wings. These bring fresh air down to the twin turbo intercoolers which are tucked neatly away at the front of the engine bay.
The instrumentation looks standard Porsche but it is all made for Ruf by VDO. There are some nice touches, for example the speedometer goes up to 350 km/h – only just enough! The rev counter is completely redesigned and re-calibrated so that the red line appears at the top, around 6,800 rpm. There is the usual temperature gauge, a boost gauge and so on.
Turn the key, apply a little ‘loud’ pedal and it fires and promptly dies! On the second attempt it keeps going and needs a few blips to get in the mood, get the oil circulating and the driver’s adrenaline pumping.
The performance figures don’t prepare you for the way this car gathers pace, and you rapidly discover that corners now come up rather quicker than usual! Believe it or not Yellow Bird will potter innocently along at around 1,500-2,000 rpm. It will struggle if you stick your foot down hard in a high gear at low speed and low revs, but it can cope with it. However the car really takes off at around 3,000 rpm – at least so Andy tells me. Neither of us was quite sure because, as both turbos kick in, the pilot needs to concentrate on keeping the projectile pointing in approximately the right direction. That is why, for a brief moment, watching boost and revs comes a poor second. The power arrives in a huge surge; it is awesome, and if it is wet, scary.
Yellow Bird was disappointingly nervous and uneasy on our great British roads. It wandered around and suffered from back-end steer under power. Subsequent discussion revealed that it badly needed its suspension geometry re-aligned and a new set of dampers. A virtually empty fuel tank probably did not help much, either.
I eventually returned the keys to Ruf Great Britain with a mixture of relief – after all I had got it back in one piece – and of frustration because I had never really explored even part of its awesome grunt. Maybe next time it is over here, and if the roads are dry, we will try and take another look at Yellow Bird. In the meantime the car is now back in Germany, siting quietly gathering dust, being admired by visitors until Stefan takes the wheel again...
I'm sure Adam can give more info.
Here's the background:
Yellow Bird!
By: 911 & Porsche World
Credit: 911 & Porsche World
Posted at: 5:53 PM, Dec 26, 2001
Pause for thought... Here I was, at last, one of very few people outside the Ruf organisation to get behind the wheel of this priceless, unique, record-breaking, twin-turbo 469 bhp monster called the Ruf CTR 911. In a perfect world I would have been in Germany, on dry, glass-smooth roads, hurtling through the Black Forest, the sun shafting mistily through the trees, or maybe hurtling around the Nürburgring. Instead I was stuck in a traffic jam in pouring rain in Reigate.
Yellow Bird was built in 1987 by Ruf in Germany; it has had one careful owner, one hooligan test-driver, has never been raced or rallied, and has covered an estimated 90,000 km.
Yellow Bird is based upon a 3.2 Carrera body. It was developed by Alois Ruf and his team as a prototype to attract publicity and put his company on the map. It succeeded, for Yellow Bird is still a remarkable engineering ambassador for the company. It remains among the most sought after cars in the world and is probably one of the most famous 911s ever built.
So why is it so famous and why so precious? In April 1987 the Ruf CTR 911 was officially designated ‘The Fastest Production Car in the World’. Road & Track magazine had set up a test session and the car, driven by Phil Hill and Paul Frère, beat everything in sight, clocking a maximum speed of 210.6 mph. After that it collected the name Yellow Bird.
In October 1988 the car arrived at Nardo, Italy, for more high speed testing with Auto Motor und Sport. This time it was up against a Ferrari F40 and a Porsche 959. The CTR won again, officially clocking a remarkable 212.5 mph. At one point it actually achieved an unofficial 215 mph! The record book also shows that it will do 0-60 mph in 4 secs, 0-124 mph takes 11.3 secs. This remains, as far as we know, officially the fastest road-going 911 in the world.
So what is Yellow Bird all about? Alois maintains that it is easy enough to design a car to perform on billiard table smooth racing circuits. It is much harder to design one that will behave on public roads, and then get out on a circuit ‘play day’ and blow everything into the weeds! Rest assured, the Ruf CTR will blow almost anything away. It has a 3.4-litre, flat-six, air-cooled, twin-turbo bit of glorious madness tucked neatly under the rear spoiler. With a modest 469 bhp (‘modest’ because it is probably more!) at 5,950 rpm and with a thumping 553 Nm of torque at 5,100 rpm, this car is shatteringly quick! This sort of grunt will see off virtually anything and allows wheel-spin in any gear, even on dry roads. As if this isn’t enough, there is an innocent turbo boost knob tucked away between the seats. 1.1 bar is the ‘norm’ – much more and it no doubt would be very exciting right up to the point where the engine reached meltdown.
The engine management system and electronic fuel injection were built from scratch in conjunction with Bosch. This bird is rather thirsty when driven hard – maybe a modest 8-10 mpg. However, fill the 105 litre (23 gallon) tank to the brim with four star or super unleaded, and drive sensibly and legally (not an easy task), and you will travel around 497 miles (21 mpg) before your next visit to the petrol station.
Obviously, putting all this power down onto the road presented an enormous engineering challenge. The suspension pick-up points remain the same as a standard 911, but the Bilstein gas shock absorbers and roll bars are all modified. There is a mysteriously bent bracing bar between the front turrets; whether it got bent under the strain or was built that way, I never discovered. A limited slip differential looks after some of the back-end traction and it cheerfully clonked occasionally. The gearbox casing comes courtesy of Porsche, but all the internals are down to Ruf. To make sure it holds together under pressure and doesn’t get too hot, the gearbox has its own oil-cooler and electric oil-pump.
It is all very well going this quickly, but stopping Yellow Bird tends to concentrate the mind. Brembo and Ruf worked together to produce huge 330 mm, ventilated, cross-drilled discs and Ruf’s own four-pot calipers; it is a combination that is well up to the task. There is no servo and pedal pressures are high, but I assure you it will stop!
The shell has been modified in a big way; the rain gutters have been removed and the crucial load points and suspension pick-up points have been strengthened. The next brave step was driving the thing, a task best approached with an open mind and a very cautious right foot. As Andy Monaghan of Ruf GB had already demonstrated, it is easy enough to get wheelspin in almost any gear.
By now, after years of abuse and the occasional ‘off’, despite the way it looks in the photos the car is far from concours. Odd panels don’t quite match and the interior is delightfully secondhand. To save weight it has lightweight doors, bonnet and glass and even the front bumper is made of aluminium. There is a deep front lip and rear valance, behind which lurks an oil cooler. There is no sunshine roof! The rear arches are slightly flared to accommodate the 10 x 17 inch rims. There is a discreet Ruf logo on the bonnet and a down-market CTR sticker on the boot. The only clue to the beast’s pedigree lies with those NACA ducts on the rear wings. These bring fresh air down to the twin turbo intercoolers which are tucked neatly away at the front of the engine bay.
The instrumentation looks standard Porsche but it is all made for Ruf by VDO. There are some nice touches, for example the speedometer goes up to 350 km/h – only just enough! The rev counter is completely redesigned and re-calibrated so that the red line appears at the top, around 6,800 rpm. There is the usual temperature gauge, a boost gauge and so on.
Turn the key, apply a little ‘loud’ pedal and it fires and promptly dies! On the second attempt it keeps going and needs a few blips to get in the mood, get the oil circulating and the driver’s adrenaline pumping.
The performance figures don’t prepare you for the way this car gathers pace, and you rapidly discover that corners now come up rather quicker than usual! Believe it or not Yellow Bird will potter innocently along at around 1,500-2,000 rpm. It will struggle if you stick your foot down hard in a high gear at low speed and low revs, but it can cope with it. However the car really takes off at around 3,000 rpm – at least so Andy tells me. Neither of us was quite sure because, as both turbos kick in, the pilot needs to concentrate on keeping the projectile pointing in approximately the right direction. That is why, for a brief moment, watching boost and revs comes a poor second. The power arrives in a huge surge; it is awesome, and if it is wet, scary.
Yellow Bird was disappointingly nervous and uneasy on our great British roads. It wandered around and suffered from back-end steer under power. Subsequent discussion revealed that it badly needed its suspension geometry re-aligned and a new set of dampers. A virtually empty fuel tank probably did not help much, either.
I eventually returned the keys to Ruf Great Britain with a mixture of relief – after all I had got it back in one piece – and of frustration because I had never really explored even part of its awesome grunt. Maybe next time it is over here, and if the roads are dry, we will try and take another look at Yellow Bird. In the meantime the car is now back in Germany, siting quietly gathering dust, being admired by visitors until Stefan takes the wheel again...
"The engine management system and electronic fuel injection were built from scratch in conjunction with Bosch. This bird is rather thirsty when driven hard – maybe a modest 8-10 mpg. However, fill the 105 litre (23 gallon) tank to the brim with four star or super unleaded, and drive sensibly and legally (not an easy task), and you will travel around 497 miles (21 mpg) before your next visit to the petrol station. "
I didnt know you could fill the yellowbird with 4 star fuel....that cant be right?
all the best
adam
I didnt know you could fill the yellowbird with 4 star fuel....that cant be right?
all the best
adam
DustyC said:
You are probably right but cats go back longer than you might first think. C3 Corvettes (1973-1983) had them, but not sure what year they were introduced.
Yeh but that was just for the yanks mate, they bunged 'em on all sorts of wallowamatic gas guzzler cack in the 70s for Californias clean air laws.
I respect the engineering that went into the CTR, but did the designer have a terrible car accident, going off the road, through a glue factory and finally coming to rest at the back of a Halfords superstore?
Did he style the CTR on the resultant carnage?
>> Edited by Raven Flyer on Thursday 15th December 23:12
Did he style the CTR on the resultant carnage?
>> Edited by Raven Flyer on Thursday 15th December 23:12
Raven Flyer said:
I respect the engineering that went into the CTR, but did the designer have a terrible car accident, going off the road, through a glue factory and finally coming to rest at the back of a Halfords superstore?
Did he style the CTR on the resultant carnage?
I assume you mean the CTR2, which is over-styled as compared to the CTR (shown in white on this thread), which is a very pretty understated car.
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