01-26-2009, 08:25 AM
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| EVO Car Reviews: Ruf CTR3
             Now the Ruf series continues with this mid-engined, twin turbo 691bhp CTR3 Quote:
If the Ruf CTR3’s appearance seems a little odd, at least it isn’t in the usual way. Rather than being modestly off-beam, think of ‘little’ as an average drawn from disparate extremes. Approach the 420,000-euro Ruf from the side and it looks so strange your eyes will grapple with the image like an autofocus lens trying to lock on to an object with no straight edges. And it’s true, the CTR3 has none. Walk round to the front and the feeling of mild panic slowly dissipates as, step-by-step, the shape eases into something more reassuringly 911-esque. Circle to the back and any residual oddness flutters away to zero as the awesome width and race-car architecture of the tail seem to erase the preceding visions.
But not quite. For all the drama and aggression of the rear end, there’s something faintly feminine about it. Those Cayman tail lights. In fact, I reckon that if a 911 were fired through the arse of a Cayman at close to light speed by a larger version of the Large Hadron Collider and a photograph taken a trillionth of a second after the impact, the result would look pretty much like the Ruf CTR3. A fascinatingly reproportioned hybrid some 5in wider than a 911 and a still more unlikely 4.5in lower.
This is the car that Alois Ruf has wanted to make ever since taking the reins of the Pfaffenhausen-based company from his father, Alois Ruf Snr, at his death in 1974: a no-compromise, premier-league supercar designed from the ground up. Not one saddled with the rear-slung engine of the 911, nor a modified edition of the mid-engined Cayman with a ridiculous amount of power.
There are Ruf Caymans that will embarrass any stock 911 this side of a 997 GT2 on a track, and here too, in the Ruf tradition, a line has been drawn. We’re talking a true Enzo/Koenigsegg/Veyron-class exotic that, apart from anything else, would fill the void left by Porsche’s own ‘best game’ contender, the now defunct Carrera GT. But the CTR3’s ambition – as well as exceeding that of the original and now legendary 469bhp CTR ‘Yellow Bird’ and the 520bhp CTR2 that followed a decade later – reaches beyond even that of Porsche’s fastest ever production car.
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