Photography by Glenn Zanotti
Driver’s Notebook: Ruf Rt12 Turbo
February 1, 2006
The last Ruf Turbo I drove was the über-Porsche builder’s personal car, a baby blue 590 hp rocket based on a 996 chassis. Alois Ruf dangled the keys before me and pointed the way toward the autobahn. Since then, both Porsche and Ruf have taken significant strides forward. Porsche introduced the 997 iteration of the iconic 911 last year, but Ruf beat it to the streets with a turbo version that he calls the Rt12 Turbo. I drove the first one to arrive in the United States last November at the Ruf Auto Centre in Dallas. This pristine facility opened in 2004 to provide a U.S. base of operations for Ruf sales and service, including conversions. Wayne Corley, one of the Auto Centre owners, chose a decidedly different approach from Alois’ for my initial turn at the wheel of the bright orange 650 hp Rt12. No freeway flying, but rather a crawl through the North Dallas evening rush-hour traffic to my hotel.
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(Click image to enlarge.)Despite the considerable difference in machinery, both introductory drives reflected the attitude and philosophy behind the cars Ruf builds. “Ruf builds optimized street cars, not racecars,” says Corley. The Rt12 is willing and able to go more than 220 mph, or it can creep along in first gear without aggravating itself or its driver.
“It’s not difficult to get a lot of horsepower out of these cars,” Corley says, “but it is difficult to get horsepower that you can drive on the street. How the engine idles, its low-end torque, and the partial throttle response are all important to Ruf.”
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(Click image to enlarge.)To test that street worthiness, I explored Texas back roads nearly to the Oklahoma border in search of a tight, twisty set of curves to test its coil-over adjustable suspension and meaty 19-inch wheels and tires. Not many such roads exist in this wide-open, vertically challenged part of Texas, but I still managed to give this IROC tangerine screamer a good workout over the heaving, grainy, heat-saturated two-lanes when they occasionally zigged around a grove of trees or zagged according to a rancher’s property line.
Thanks to finely weighted and precise steering and the competence and confidence inspired by the optional all-wheel drive, the Rt12 went exactly where it was pointed. An Rt12 driver can judiciously add throttle from the midpoint of a turn onward without the fear of spiraling off backward toward the endless horizon.
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