This $6.055 Million Sale Raised the Ruf on Yellowbird Prices

Three days of sales have concluded on Amelia Island. Among the big results were some of the obvious players: Ferrari had a great showing with a 1955 375 MM bringing $9.465 million and a 1959 250 GT LWB California Spider Competizione bringing the same number. A Jaguar D-Type works car also brought an impressive $4.295 million. However, for onlookers used to the usual suspects in the top auction slots, a new player flew onto the radar this week with the stunning $6.055 million sale of a 1989 Ruf CTR “Yellowbird” at Gooding & Company’s sale.

We’ve been watching the rise in awareness of Ruf automobiles at auction the past several years, but this sale wasn’t just a world record for the marque—it was a signal that there is a new supercar player on the block, and enthusiasm for them is beginning to outpace even some of their more famous contemporaries.

Since Ruf is not a household name like Ferrari or Lamborghini, a quick history lesson is in order. Ruf Automobile GmbH began in 1939 as a service station located in Pfaffenhausen, Germany, later starting a line of touring buses in the mid-1950s. Ruf changed direction in 1974, when Alois Ruf, Jr. took over the business after his father’s passing. As a sports car enthusiast who had begun working on Porsches while in the family shop, the younger Ruf decided the company would focus on hot-rodding Stuttgart’s finest. The first full model, dubbed the Turbo 3.3, debuted in 1977 and was based on the Porsche 930. By 1981, Ruf gained full manufacturer status from the German government, adding further legitimacy to its endeavor to create the quickest and fastest sports cars on the road.

Ruf’s big break came in 1987 with the all-new CTR (Group C Turbo Ruf). Calling this a spiced-up 911 would be an oversimplification—this was a completely worked-over German supercar that reset the bar. Ruf chose to start with a 911 Carrera 3.2 body-in-white for the narrow body’s better drag coefficient and lighter weight. Ruf workers set about massaging the body to accommodate a massive set of 17-inch Speedline wheels, removed the rain gutters to improve aerodynamics, and undertook some subtle body reshaping to help cool the engine. Powering the CTR into flight would be a 3.4-liter flat-six engine with a pair of KKK turbochargers, making a massive 463 horsepower with an adjustable boost controller in the cabin to control the power levels from mild to wild. Ruf offered a standard five-speed and an optional six-speed manual at a time when Porsche was still peddling four-speeds. The suspension was tweaked, and a beefy set of Brembo brakes were added to haul the car to a stop from its 211-mph top speed.

Improving performance even further, buyers could specify a leichtbau—lightweight—form of the CTR. This replaced body panels and doors with lighter aluminum. A leather-wrapped Matter aluminum roll cage found its way into the interior along with a set of Recaro Clubsport seats. These changes saved over 400 pounds to give a total weight of just around 2500 pounds.

The resulting car was impressive, to put it mildly. In addition to that bonkers top speed, it could also sprint to 60 mph in just 3.65 seconds, and to 100 mph in just seven. Road & Track was properly impressed with the CTR in 1987 when the magazine named it the “world’s fastest car,” and the name they’d given the car during the test, “Yellowbird,” immediately stuck. Adding to the Yellowbird’s lore, Ruf released its Faszination auf dem Nürburgring film, which showed the car being expertly hustled around the Nürburgring by test driver Stefan Roser. Ultimately, only 29 examples would be built by Ruf, making it incredibly rare, even more so than slightly slower contemporaries like the Ferrari F40, 288 GTO, and Porsche 959.

The car offered by Gooding was number 26, outfitted in leichtbau configuration as originally purchased by an unnamed German collector in 1989. It remained in their collection, unregistered the entire time, until it was sold in 2020 to an owner in the U.S. It has only covered 1673 km (1040 miles) in total. The $6.055 million result is a huge chunk of money for a car of this era, and context helps place this sale’s significance. A concours-condition F40 is $3.45 million, while a Porsche 959 Sport of the same quality comes in at $4.7 million. Both ultra-special cars in their own right, but still cheaper. It would take a 911 GT1 or a McLaren F1 to best this sale price.

Number 26 might not be the example to own from a driving perspective, but if the best is what you’re after, it is perhaps the example to own. Desirably equipped and in time-capsule condition, it was bound to set the market for all Ruf cars. The importance of this sale cannot be overstated: Not only was it a big number, but it signals that Ruf carries serious clout in the collector world. Although we may not see another CTR hit the market again for some time, the shift in attention to Ruf automobiles will likely encourage other similarly exceptional Ruf models to trickle onto the market.