RUF's New Carbon Fiber Chassis

[Synchro Joe]

Thanks to clever engineering, RUF doesn't need to cut up a Porsche anymore to create something truly special. We've heard about it, and we saw it at the Geneva Motor Show. But to fully understand the significance of RUF's brand new scaleable chassis, I had to drive to Pfaffenhausen to take my sweet time looking at its details, and learn about the possibilities it brought to RUF's table.

When it comes to air-cooled 911s, all everybody talks about nowadays is the result of Singer's Dynamics and Lightweighting Study, a car Singer reimagined with the help of Williams Advanced Engineering. That 911 comes with a magnificent engine, all the carbon fiber and a whole bunch of clever upgrades that only costs 1.8 million of your hard-earned dollars. Yet Singer bases its restorations on a standard 964 floor, adding a strut brace at the front, and seam welding in critical places. You know who did the same upgrades back in 1992? Porsche, for the European-market Carrera RS.

There was a rumor among 911 enthusiasts that Alois Ruf has such a good relationship with Porsche that he got his donor cars as body-in-white shells straight from the factory, despite being a manufacturer himself. But I was told that hasn't been the case since the early eighties, when Porsche upgraded to an assembly line that wouldn't allow for a single car to be taken out of the chain on demand. Since then, RUF has been buying Porsches from dealers just like everybody else. And despite throwing out pretty much everything, its not like they can opt for the base models either, as the complicated wiring harness has to be in place for all luxury functions to work.

Eight years ago, RUF debuted a 997-based prototype at the Geneva Motor Show, powered by a self-developed 4.5-liter dry-sump flat-plane V8. It was a lightweight eight-cylinder 911 dream come true, yet the RGT-8 was never sold to the public. The reason being that RUF's new engine wouldn't pass emissions after cold start, and given its limited resources, the company decided to spend its money on coming up with a new chassis instead of further developing the motor.
The resulting platform is the brand's future. It's a chassis that allows them to build cars without using a donor from Porsche, and it weighs just 573 pounds fully loaded. By modifying the subframes, RUF can use it to create cabriolets, coupés, mid-engined and rear-engined models, even with optional all-wheel drive. That means the 911-shaped SCR or CTR, or the future successor of the wild, mid-engined CTR3 Clubsport, will all use the new carbon fiber tub. Leaving the rest to designer Freeman Thomas, the Ruf family came up with a winning formula for the next decade.

Needless to say, the new RUF chassis is extremely rigid. And not by 1989 standards. Since RUF doesn't own an autoclave, the monocoque comes from a supplier in the south of Germany, while the complete chassis requires parts from around ten other companies. Once all the bits are at RUF, with the welded subframes and the carbon fiber skin, full assembly takes 2-3 days.

In a world where Singer charges $1.8 million for a 500 horsepower naturally-aspirated air-cooled car based on a Porsche 964, RUF charges roughly a million less for an equally naturally-aspirated, but water-cooled, carbon monocoque-based, and therefore brand new car packing 535 horsepower. You do the math, but pricing isn't even the crucial part. It's the engineering.

Now that CTR Anniversary #01 is out the door, keys in the hands of a Miami collector, RUF has 49 more to build. Originally the company planned on building 30-there were 29 original CTRs-but there was so much demand, it decided to increase production to 50. None of the original 30 customers objected, and the next 20 units were quickly sold. After it’s done with the CTR, RUF has to get going on the new SCR, the naturally aspirated version of this car.

[RWebb]

2,646 pounds...