Race driver Tanner Foust guided a vivid yellow prototype through repeated runs up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Each climb let spectators hear the engine’s low idle thump give way to a full eight cylinder growl backed by turbo whistle as the car gathered speed.
RUF designed this new prototype around an entirely new 4.8 liter twin turbo flat 8 engine, a beast that produces over 1,000 horsepower and 1,000 newton meters of torque on its own without the use of any hybrid technology, all thanks to an in-house built six-speed manual transmission. The flat eight’s horizontally opposed cylinders give it a distinct idling and revving personality. Four cylinders lie on either side of the crankshaft, sliding outward and then inward, giving it the classic boxer look, but with the extra cylinders and twin turbochargers, it has a strong kick in the pants when it gets up to speed.
- HIGH-SPEED RACING THRILLS – Kids roar around the racetrack with the LEGO Technic Porsche 911 GT3 R REXY AO Racing Car (42224) building toy for boys and girls ages 11 years old and up
- REALISTIC FEATURES & FUNCTIONS – Young builders can steer using the knob on top, test the working suspension on all 4 wheels, explore the 6-cylinder boxer engine with correct firing order, and activate synchronized air jacks
- FIERCE DINOSAUR DESIGN – This Porsche race car model features eye-catching T. rex-themed graphics that make it a showstopper on and off the imaginary track
The engine is placed in a development version of the CTR3 mid-engined supercar, with the wheelbase and body expanded out by 100mm to fit everything in. The front end is a revised Porsche 911 setup, but it’s now joined to a unique tubular steel rear chassis section designed in collaboration with Multimatic to handle the new engine layout and keep the whole thing balanced. Power is delivered to the rear wheels via an in-house manual transmission, maintaining the rear wheel drive format that RUF’s earlier bikes were built on, but with the increased power that this larger engine provides.
The car has a special livery in a sleek Blossom Yellow that is a dead ringer for the famed CTR Yellowbird of old. The graphics on the body are all flowing, and they attempt to outline the number 8 in 3D, a direct reference to the engine’s new 8-cylinder count and RUF’s continued ambition to perfect the art of building insanely fast automobiles. Aloisa Ruf contributed to the car’s design, and she made the visuals flow so smoothly that they appear to be in motion even when the car is stationary.
Founder Alois Ruf is overjoyed about the boxer eight, calling it a watershed point in the company’s history. He points out that this engine configuration has never been seen in an RUF car before, and it will not appear in any other factory road cars. The team opted to unveil the car by putting it through its paces at Goodwood, demonstrating what this revolutionary engine is capable of in the real world. That flat 8 layout may have been employed in some Porsches in the past, such as the 908 sports prototype, but those engines were only used in race cars. RUF is now putting the same architecture into an actual road car, complete with twin turbos and a modern twist.
