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In 1987, The World's Fastest Cars Couldn't Catch A 211-mph Twin-Turbo Ruf
From the 1987 July issue of Road & Track
Is Santa Claus German? Or Dutch? I can never remember. But this particular morning it looked as though he might be German, or at least have manifested his spirit in the hearts of a few German car enthusiasts.
I woke early and went to the window of my room in the Alte Mühle Hotel, a charming little country inn not far from Wolfsburg. I threw open the shutters and pulled down the sash, so to speak, and there in the parking lot was a collection of cars that had materialized overnight like a load of Christmas gifts. Never mind that it was early spring. They had arrived one by one during the evening and the wee hours.
A frost had settled on the cars, and they looked like ice sculptures of frozen motion, curves and lines to stop the heart-and the cars of passing motorists. Citizens on their way to work on the early shift were doing theatrical double-takes and slamming on their brakes for a better look at this remarkable collection of shapes.
And what shapes.
Gathered in the lot were the cars that Phil Hill and Paul Frere would be driving that morning for our World's Fastest Cars run at Volkswagen's Ehra-Lessien test track.
They were:
A pair of Porsche 959s in silver and white, looking for all the world like stratospheric vapor trails crystallized into metal. The white car was a lightweight stripped-down Sport model, and the silver one was the more luxuriously equipped Deluxe ver sion. Both were showcases of Porsche technology with variable-traction 4-wheel-drive, speed-sensitive ride height, 17-in. wheels and huge brakes with ABS, among other things. Paul Frere had driven the silver car to the hotel, and Porsche's Manfred Bantle, head of the 959 project, had arrived in the other.
Two Ferraris. A lithe GTO with the yellow prancing-horse shield proud on its front flanks and that solid chunk of flowing mass, the Testarossa. Both red. Once again, our friends Helmut Becker and Michael Gabel had come through. Herr Becker is a Ferrari enthusiast and the owner of Auto-Becker, a Düsseldorf company that sells 17 different lines of cars. He arranged our cars for the Le Mans portion of our "Ferrari Fantasy" story in August 1986, and this time he'd brought our Testarossa. The GTO had arrived from Berlin with Michael Gabel behind the wheel. He's vice president of the German Ferrari Owners Club and the man who lent us his Boxer for our first Fastest Cars story (September 1984). Herr Gabel had also brought along his Audi Quattro as a matter of curiosity, to see what it would do on the high banking.
What else? A couple of Koenig Turbo Porsches, in wild and only slightly wild form. One car was a sort of jawbreaker purple color with wide rear flares and a stunningly red leather interior; the other a more subdued blue with 935-style front bodywork, a Ruf 5-speed gearbox and a 520-bhp engine built by Reinhold Schmirler and Pierie Ofzky at RS Tuning. The purple car was supplied by tuner Willy Koenig's Munich firm, and the blue car was Ofzky's personal transportation.
One Isdera Imperator 108i, looking in the morning mist like a 21st century monorail car that had traded its rail in on a set of wheels. This lovely gullwing creation, whose styling is based on the b+ b CW311, was brought by its designer and builder, Eberhard Schulz, from his small 12-man factory near Stuttgart. There are only eight of these cars in the world, with two more nearly completed. The Imperator is built with Porsche 928 suspension pieces, an AMG-built 390-bhp Mercedes 5.6-liter V-8 mated to a ZF 5-speed transaxle, a steel-tube space frame and fiberglass bodywork.
One AMG Hammer, the car R&T billed last year (December 1986) as "the hottest passenger sedan in history." It may have been the only sedan in the parking lot collection, but it was certainly in the right place, with 0-60-mph acceleration we'd last measured at 5.4 seconds and a quarter-mile time of 13.6 sec at 109.0 mph, top speed estimated at around 180 mph. We'd find out about that soon enough. This car started life as an M-B 300E, but tuner Hans-Werner Aufrecht (the A in AMG), who was born in Grossaspach (hence the G), installed a 5.6-liter Mercedes V-8 with 4-valve heads and cams designed by Erhard Melcher (M) then added aerodynamic body panels and suspension work and came up with a 4-door sedan that hunted Porsches on the autobahn.
A Lamborghini Countach, perhaps the most otherworldly shape of all, bristling with decks and planes and scoops like a deathship from outer space, still defining to many, after all these years, what an exotic car should look like. Our Countach, with its lovely V-12 and long row of Weber carburetors had been brought to us from the factory by a Sr Valentino and now sat in the parking lot vying with the two Ferraris in a silent contest of Italian redness.
A Ruf Twin-Turbo Porsche, painted a luminous canary hue and standing out from the other cars like a yellow raincoat on a dark and rainy day (which this one, from the look of the sky, was promising to be). This 911-based car was the work of Alois Ruf, the charming gentleman whose Munich firm had turned out the fastest car in our last World's Fastest story, with a top speed of 186 mph. Ruf is widely respected for the quality and reliability of his cars, so we were expecting good things from this latest yellow 3.4-liter, 470 bhp twin-turbo offering, which had been completed just in time for this test and had only dyno time and the mileage to our hotel on its engine. As an added bonus, Herr Ruf had brought along the car that won our last contest, driven by its present owner, Wolf Gregor, who told us he had 211,000 trouble-free miles on the odometer (he swaps engines every 50,000 kilometers and has his spare rebuilt by Ruf to keep it in top form).
We had breakfast at the Alte Mühle with all the owners, mechanics, drivers and their families and friends, rallied in the parking lot and drove off in the world's most exotic train for the nearby test track under a darkening sky. By the time we reached Ehra-Lessien it was pouring rain, and we took shelter in a large barn at the edge of an immense expanse of blacktop VW uses for testing. By mid-morning it cleared and began to dry, so we drove to the Schnellbahn. Paul Frere went out first in the Lamborghini to test the waters, literally.
Volkswagen's amazing Ehra-Lessien test track is 15.5 miles around, with a pair of high-banked turns joined by two 7.0- mile straightaways. There are photoelectric cells and large digital display boards on each straight, and they automatically flash the speed to the driver as he passes. The long straights are only a few hundred feet apart in the middle, so if you stand in the central infield, you have the pleasure of watching-and hearing-cars going by flat-out in both directions, just a short distance from where you're standing. Shock wave range.
The circuit is also only a few miles from the East German border, and we could hear not-too-distant artillery and automatic weapons fire, no doubt from war games of some kind. So when Paul came down the straight in the Lamborghini, I looked in the wrong place. I thought the sound was part of the military maneuvers and looked in the sky for a low-flying fighter. Instead, the Countach flew by in an absolutely spine-chilling scream of wind and engine noise and disappeared into its own roostertail of atomized rainwater. The automatic timing clock on the back straight registered 278.2 km/h on its large digital display: 173 mph.
Paul came in and said the track was drying out, so I climbed into the Lamborghini with him to go out for a few more laps of the circuit, while Phil circulated in one of the 959s.
So what's it like out there, on the Volkswagen Schnellbahn in a Lamborghini?
Well, you close the jackknife door, rest your feet on a bar that protects the fire extinguisher in the footwell and accelerate onto the track with a wonderful 12-cylinder ripping sound from the engine compartment. The doorsills are high, but the chocolate brown instrument panel is low beneath the steeply raked windshield, giving you a nice forward panorama of the track. The car feels wide, hunting a bit as it climbs past 200 km/h, wipers lifting slightly away from the windshield. Paul shifts with a firm, positive motion and as we head toward the first banking, the tach is just into the yellow at 7000 rpm with an indicated 300 km/h on the speedometer. Paul backs off and brakes slightly for the banking, climbs high into the top groove and the g-forces push you into the seat. Feels about like a 2-to 3g pullout at the bottom of a loop in a Citabria. Not a good time to scratch your head because your arm doesn't want to come off the armrest and you feel as if you're growing a fine pair of jowls.
The car sweeps down onto the back straight, and you immediately lose a few hundred pounds of ugly weight, watching lightpoles go by at Keystone Cop speed. Wind roar from the edges of the windows competes with engine scream to make you deaf (you'd want earplugs for a full day of this). Paul seems as relaxed as the car seems hyper, keeping it straight with small steering-wheel corrections and a light touch. Even at these speeds, the Volkswagen track is so long the straight seems to go on forever. We finally approach the digital display board and it flashes 281.0 at us. That's about 175 mph. Faster than I've ever gone on the ground.
We do a few more laps and then Paul slows down for the pits. At around 100 mph I feel as if I could get out and walk, it's so slow; and I start to unbuckle my seat belt. Paul brakes really hard, almost missing the pit road, and as we pull to a stop I work hard to wipe that stupid grin off my face. This is business.
For the rest of the day I alternated between rides with Phil and Paul, sampling all the cars-or almost all. Both Koenig cars developed mechanical trouble (broken fan belt and a blown base gasket) on their first or second laps, but not before the blue Koenig/RS car got in one lap at 201 mph, second fastest of the day. The Ferrari GTO also managed just one lap (179 mph) before its black box cut the spark to one bank of cylinders. " I feel honored," said the car's owner, Michael Gabel, smiling philosophically. "The same thing happens to Alboreto."
All the other cars ran beautifully, picking up speed as the track dried out and the air became less humid. I rode in both 959s, which had an amazing combination of low speed tractability combined with flat-out serenity on the track (at 198 mph in the sport version and 197 in the deluxe version), all the while making the most beautiful deep, smooth engine sounds 12 operatic tenor of the Testarossa. Being able to ride in this marvelously strong and stable-feeling car while the engine hovered at redline for minutes at a time, holding that single sustained note, was about as sublime a pleasure as can ever be expected from a car made by mortals.
The Isdera Imperator offered another kind of thrill with its raspy hot-rodded AMG/Mercedes V-8 reminding me most of a Camaro Trans-Am series racer I once rode in, a very race-car feeling GT with low amplitude vibration coming though the seat and frame and superb stability in the banking. It was the only car in which I felt we could have taken a much lower groove through the banking and drifted without worry onto the back straight. The AMG Hammer was another car that befuddled the senses; it was impossible to sit in that normal 4-door passenger car interior and watch the track go by at 183 mph and justify what you were seeing on the speedometer with what you were feeling about your surroundings. A triumph of horse power and suspension tuning over the laws of physics and aero dynamics. The Audi Quattro turned in a creditable 154 mph and Herr Gregor's Ruf, which won our 1984 contest, went 187 mph-just a tick faster than its past record of 186.2 mph.
But not until later in the afternoon did I get into the fastest car of all.
I buckled myself (with real racing belts) into the spartan interior of the Yellow Bird, which the Ruf people had taken to calling it; the Ruf Twin-Turbo. I held onto the built-in rollcage as Paul Frere accelerated onto the track, and I was absolutely astounded by the acceleration (no easy feat after a day in Ferraris, Lamborghinis, etc). At each gearshift the Ruf went slightly sideways, only to straighten for an explosive burst of speed to the next gear, more like what I imagined a top-fuel dragster to be than a perfectly driveable road car. As Paul hit 5th gear, we blasted past the first timing clock at 311.9 km/h-still accelerating from a standing start!
We flattened onto the banking and exploded onto the back straight with the tach at around 7000 and the speedometer showing 340. My God, I thought, these are Indy speeds. The yellow Ruf pegged its 350-km/h speedometer and howled past the clocks with 336.1 showing on the board: 209 mph. Paul looked over at me with a slightly manic grin and shouted over the earsplitting roar of the engine, "This is faster than I've ever gone in my life!"
Not the kind of thing you hear every day from a former Grand Prix driver and Le Mans winner who test drives every conceivable kind of car for a living.
Back in the pits, Alois Ruf opened the door and asked how fast we'd gone. Paul told him in German. A murmur of approval broke out in the crowd, along with applause. The teen-aged son of Michael Gabel looked in through the window at our instrument panel and exclaimed, "Mil Radio!"
More applause.
Later, with the track completely dry, the yellow car went even faster. On its last run of the afternoon, Phil Hill took photographer John Lamm out for a few laps and recorded a trap speed of 339.8 km/h, or 211 mph. That stood as the fastest speed of the day.
As we packed up to leave, Alois Ruf and his chief technician, Jo Huber, showed up at the track with a barrel of their favorite Bavarian beer. It began to rain again, so we drank in the shelter. The weather had cleared just long enough for us to go 25 mph faster than we'd gone in our 1984 outing.
But even more remarkable than that jump to the Ruf's 211-mph top speed was that Phil, Paul and Alois Ruf all agreed that the yellow car was undergeared. " We could make it go faster," Ruf said, "but there's not much purpose in a road car going very much faster than 300 kilometers per hour. But 300 kilo meters per hour is the magic speed in Europe. And in the U.S., 200 miles per hour is the important number, so we tried to go faster than that."
With change, I thought.
After Wolfsburg, we took the cars south through Germany to the Hockenheimring, where we used a portion of the long back straight for a drag strip. Here again, our pack of cars showed its amazing flexibility, proving that they could not only hit high speeds, but also motor around town and smoke through the quarter mile. The now-repaired Koenig/RS Turbo Porsche was quickest, with a time of 11.6 sec at 133.5 mph, and the RUF was just a tick away, running an 11.7-sec quarter mile at the same speed. The Porsche 959 Sport was the 0-60 champ, doing it in an incredible 3.6 sec, with the Ruf and Koenig/RS tied at 4.0. It was exciting to see the Ruf spin slightly sideways at each shift and the Porsche 959 light up all four tires as it leaped off the line and to hear the Koenig/RS's howling wheel- spin down the whole quarter mile.
Fascinating stuff. But for us Americans, as Ruf had correctly divined, nothing quite surpassed the magic of going 200 mph. And beyond. Mit Radio.
