This Ruf CTR Yellowbird Is Expected To Sell For Over $1 Million
It all goes back to a now legendary Road & Track group test held at VW’s Ehra-Lessien facility in 1987. Even though it featured some of the hottest cars of the 1980s - including a Ferrari 288 GTO, a Porsche 959 and a Lamborghini Countach, to name but a few - it was the CTR that shone through. Partly because it was completely nuts, and partly because the bright yellow paint scheme of the test car made it stand out even more. It was nicknamed Yellow Bird, and the name stuck.
It all goes back to a now legendary Road & Track group test held at VW’s Ehra-Lessien facility in 1987. Even though it featured some of the hottest cars of the 1980s - including a Ferrari 288 GTO, a Porsche 959 and a Lamborghini Countach, to name but a few - it was the CTR that shone through. Partly because it was completely nuts, and partly because the bright yellow paint scheme of the particularly test car made it stand out even more. It was nicknamed Yellow Bird, and the name stuck.
Although the intention was to build a spectacularly angry turbocharged 911, Ruf chose not to do the easy thing and start with a 930, but instead use a regular 3.2 Carrera as the base. That flat-six grew to 3.4 litres and gained a couple of turbochargers, along with two intercoolers. Soon the power was at 469bhp, allowing for a top speed of 213mph. In 1987. Even the 959 it was tested against didn’t have an answer - it ran out of puff at a mere 197mph.
This particular CTR was built for the Swiss market and was delivered on 10 February 1989. The first owner, however, was a German man who’d gotten bored of waiting for the CTR that was being built to his requested spec. Once the second car was completed, he decided to keep both. We like his style.
With 52,200km on the clock it’s not exactly leggy, but considering how special this thing is, that’s a pleasingly high mileage. It’s clearly not just been stuffed away in a garage all of its life, in other words.
It’s due to be auctioned at RM Sotheby’s Monterey event on 25 August.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
While i look at that Nordschleife lap. I wonder how fast it would be with modern semi slick tyres. And i have that thought about every older supercar. I think the gap would be smaller than we think
i remember seeing one for 290.000€ about three years ago. guess i should’ve bought that one. the profit alone would buy me a nice gt2 rs, cayman gt4 and a manually shifted gt3.
Can I just point out that the first paragraph is repeated?
On another note… AAAAHH MY FAVOURITE 911 OF ALL TIME AAAAHHH!!!!!
Me. Sees this beautiful piece of engineering and art Crys because I’ll never have the money to by it Crys more because it will probably never see a track day, back road, or be enjoyed to the full
I never could really decide over
RUF or Singer …