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Tag: Ruf

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Tuner Tuesday Gold Digger: 1977 Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet

What is the tipping point in modifying a car? It seems a delicate line which is easily crossed; one that once tripped over pushes the car in question into a free fall from object of desire to ridicule. Obviously, if someone opens up a J.C. Whitney catalog and orders all of the accessories available for their Monte Carlo, it’ll be a bit of a laugh. But what about when the ingredients are all top-dollar, high quality units? Let’s take this 911 for an example and break down the components: at it’s base, this is a 1977 911S Targa, or was. Now, by itself that’s an increasingly valuable commodity – so, it’s a good basis, right? Now it wears an updated 993 wardrobe; they’re a hot commodity, too. And who doesn’t love a cabriolet? Okay, so that’s a lot of people. But some people like them, right? How about the motor, a Ruf modified twin-plug turbo? Wow, put those names together today and you’ve got yourself a retirement plan. And while not the purview of these pages, if you haven’t been following auctions anything with the name Boyd Coddington attached to it has some serious value as well since his death. There has even been a spike in value of classic Recaro seats, and right now brown tones are still totally in vogue. So, with all of these individual bits added together, this car should be worth millions, right?

If you need a reminder that 1970s Porsches weren’t always worth a lot of money, look no further.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1977 Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet…ish on eBay

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Tuner Tuesday: 2002 Ruf R Turbo Cabriolet

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:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2002 Ruf R Turbo Cabriolet on eBay

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1986 Ruf BTR Cabriolet – REVISIT

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The RUF BTR Cabriolet we featured back in December 2013 has come up for sale again, this time with a much higher price! The original auction, which did not sell, had an asking price of $199,500. The car then was relisted at $149,500 and still failed to sell. The current listing has it at $285,000, which is a lot. These are amazing machines with a fantastic pedigree and they have tended to do well on the market, a point which should continue to hold true in the future. But this is asking too much, especially given the previous auctions.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1986 Ruf BTR Cabriolet on eBay

The below post originally appeared on our site December 26, 2013:

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Tuner Tuesday: 1986 Ruf BTR Slantnose

One of the great things about this blog is that we keep a pretty good inventory of rare cars written up, so that when one looks familiar we can go back and check it out. This doesn’t always work, as occasionally we forget that we’ve written one up, such as the S6 Avant I managed to write up twice. However, both of today’s tuner cars appeared on these pages before in one form or another, and I managed to track both down. Later we’ll look at an Alpina B11 3.5 that was seen here five years ago, but with 332 made it was still a bit surprising that the same one popped up for sale. When it came to today’s Ruf BTR Slantnose – one of only five made – I was sure we’d seen it before, and I was somewhat right…

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1986 Ruf BTR Slantnose on eBay

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Tuner Tuesday: 1995 Ruf BTR – REVISIT

The 993 market is red hot right now, and few cars stir the emotions of enthusiasts quite like the Turbo models. Of course, this car wasn’t originally a Turbo, but the nameplate on the front and rear more than makes up for that shortcoming – it is the 1995 Ruf BTR press car for the U.S.. Converted originally by Ruf Auto Center, this car has continually risen in price over the past few years. Since November, it has moved from Texas and it’s original $129,000 asking price to Missouri – an expensive move, apparently, since the asking price is now $149,888. Now, I haven’t shipped a car between states, but knowing some people that have (and the type of cars they ship…) I’m pretty certain that’s not a $21,000 trip. It equates to $29 a mile, if you’re counting. Does $150,000 sound like too much for a non-original, but documented history converted Ruf car?

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1995 Ruf BTR on eBay

The below post originally appeared on our site November 25, 2014:

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