Alois Ruf reveals the secrets of the legendary Porsche 911 - exclusively in The Key 2024/2025

The best fruits in agriculture are obtained by knowing how to create successful grafts. Alois Ruf applied this technique to the automobile, and he did so with such skill and knowledge that he transformed cars that were already born as legends into pure myth: the Porsches. The family’s orchard thrived when he was a boy: his father had built a solid business producing buses. But for Alois, the dream was to tie his name to automobiles that were unique. And he succeeded perfectly, starting from the beloved Porsche 911, which he profoundly reworked and modified, using his ambitious clients as perfect witnesses of his talent. Whoever is fortunate enough to be admitted into the bunker in Los Angeles where the famous collector Bruce Meyer keeps his fabulous jewels would surely be surprised to see that among the pieces in the foreground is the very yellow RUF CTR “Yellow Bird”, which set an astral record on the Nürburgring circuit in 1987 and left Americans astonished when their champion, Phil Hill, confirmed that the car was capable of a top speed of 339 km/h — something like 211 mph.

Estonia and Alois Ruf with their daughter Aloisa, among them the famous Quickblau, the oldest surviving Porsche 901 prototype.

For The Key 2024/2025, the celebrated journalist Jürgen Lewandowski conducted a long and passionate exclusive interview with Ruf to retrace his extraordinary story. The occasion was the presentation of the new Ruf Rodeo, a tribute to the legendary CTR — this time in a striking orange color, but with the added gift of being able to tackle any road and any track with four-wheel drive, adjustable ground clearance, and an incredible number of unique features that only the story told by The Key will know how to illustrate. All of this was accomplished without Alois ever betraying his childhood love: the Porsche 911, with its immortal style and fairy-tale qualities. What must be understood, however — as explained in The Key 2024/2025 — is the profound technical transformation that Alois himself personally carries out to achieve excellence in everything: stability, braking, and, of course, speed. The carbon fiber body, the engines — assembled one by one and extensively tested — with power that, in the CTR Anniversary of 2017, reached a remarkable 710 hp, are the secrets of his success.

The 1987 RUF Yellowbird alongside the CTR Anniversary presented 30 years later at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show.

When you discover the existence of Rufs, you immediately have a new goal in life: to meet one and see it up close. He'll have before him the 911 he'd always dreamed of. Perfect. More. Incredible but true. Enjoy reading The Key.

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