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If you want to understand why Ruf managed to achieve its own status as a manufacturer in Germany, it can at least partly be explained by considering the R Turbo. Not satisfied with Porsche’s own twin-turbocharged variant of the 996, Ruf made their own. They completely disassembled the 3.6 liter flat-6, reworked a fair amount of the internals including the Variocam system and turbochargers, then revised the electronics by remapping the Bosch ECU. Then they fit this upgraded engine, in keeping with their history, into the narrow-body of the normal 911 Carrera. In order to do this, it required utilizing both GT2 and GT3 parts to make the package come together. You could opt for different states of tune starting with 520 horsepower – some 100 more than the standard Turbo, making the R Turbo one of the fastest cars on the planet. Take a look at the speedometer, for example, which sweeps well past 200 m.p.h.. Yes, the R Turbo could get there, too – with a reported 217 m.p.h. terminal velocity. 0-60 was achieved in under 4 seconds and in between, very little could stay with the thin Ruf. To deal with all of this speed, of course Ruf fit their own suspension coupled with bespoke Speedline wheels and some pretty giant Brembo brakes. On top of all that, you could select new R Turbo as a Cabriolet – something Porsche themselves wouldn’t offer until 2004. And as they always have, the modifications Ruf made were as seamless as the factory bits with accompanying reliability. It made for one quite special package:
For a brief amount of time, I drove a Mk3 Volkswagen GTI. While it didn’t have the VR6, I still have fond memories of that car. It wasn’t the sportiest of hot hatches, nor the fastest, but it did everything well and I had nary a problem with it. Midway through the Mk3 production run, Volkswagen went a bit wild with the paint shop and released the Golf Harlequin. This was part of a design series for VW and an attempt to draw more traffic in the showrooms. There were four versions of the Harlequin, each with a different “base” color. This Harlequin for sale in Washington state has a Ginster Yellow base color and seems to have escaped the ravages of rust that plagued many Mk3 Golfs. It is also refreshing to see one that hasn’t been modified and the mileage is reasonable considering its age.
There has been much rending of garments and many lamentations over 911s whose owners have refused to use them as intended. Engineers have surely weeped. Ultra-low-mileage vehicles that have rarely seen the open road exist in their own reality and given the stratospheric asking prices we see for many of them it can be difficult to argue against the rationale of such investments. At the other end of the spectrum exist a wide variety of vehicles that have lead a full and eventful life, having been put through their paces by owner after owner. Higher-use cars come in all sorts of condition and in many cases make clear the desire for a low-mileage example, especially for a car like an air-cooled 911 for which the market remains quite strong. Of course, the ideal is to find a higher-mileage example that has been pampered in a manner similar to that of a collector; a car that has been used as intended, but also has been maintained to a standard that would be held by those same engineers that built the thing in the first place. Perhaps here we have just such a car. This Grand Prix White 1987 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe, located in Miami, with Burgundy leather interior sits with 124K miles, but still presents in a manner reflective of a good deal of care.
Last week we took a look at the big boy of the R129 Mercedes-Benz SL lineup, SL73 AMG. Sandwiched in between the first year the SL73 was offered and the last few years of its production is the SL70 AMG that we see here. As the badge denotes, this SL has a 7.0 liter engine under the hood, a V12 in this case, producing 490 horsepower. The SL70 AMG was a little more common than the SL73 AMG, but not by much, with only 150 produced over a two year production run.
A friend of mine and I were sitting around recently, musing over what kind of 911 we’d own if we had the money. The genesis of this was his Porsche 911 ownership; he had a ’85 911 cabriolet, and while he enjoyed the car it was a bit….well, basic in terms of creature comforts and ride quality compared to his current M3. There’s some charm in that, but having driven both I’d agree that the M3 is the better day-to-day car in nearly every way. But both of us agree that, money no object, the idea behind the Singer 911s is pretty compelling; take a more modern 911 and give it the classic look, but keep most of the modern amenities plus the modern powertrain, brakes and handling. It’s become quite a popular recipe, and with classic 911 values seemingly on an endlessly rising trajectory it’s quite viable to restore or resto-mod a 911 into a dream ride and make your money back, if not then some. Today’s example is pretty interesting and unique, though – I believe it’s the first time I’ve seen someone take a 930 chassis and turn it into a “regular” 911. Backdating the late ’70s look to the early 1970s and adding in some of the iconic IROC bits, the builders took modern Fuchs replicas and a built up 3.8 naturally aspirated motor and created one pretty awesome package:
