Bartek S.
Aerodynamic Ace
'Electric' certainly describes the performance of Alois Ruf's 700-bhp twin-turbo, carbon-bodied supercar.
Pfaffenhausen, Germany — Just as we are wrapping up the details with Alois Ruf regarding our long-awaited drive of his 700-bhp CTR3 supercar, he drops a bombshell before he hangs up the phone, "How would you like to drive a top-secret Ruf that has been under development?"
Huh? Could this be a Ruf even more powerful than the already frighteningly potent CTR3? Without hesitation, I said an emphatic "Yes!" — not waiting to even begin guessing what the secret Ruf project could be. Several follow-up phone calls and a couple of weeks later, I arrived at Pfaffenhausen to sample Ruf's latest creation: the E-Ruf, an all-electric concept car based on the Porsche 997.
After an early morning appointment with Ruf at his headquarters, we take a short drive to his skunk works, a nearby location he calls Gmünd — the city in Austria where Ferry Porsche first set up shop and built the famed 356. It's a foggy morning, and Ruf's secret R&D location emerges among a nondescript cluster of other buildings. As the garage door rolls up, a standard black 997 appears, wearing four large orange stickers with the word "Erprobungsfahrt," that is, "Test Drive," on the front and rear bumpers. Look closely and you'll notice that all the air scoops in the front, sides and back of the 997 are now filled in and smoothed over. Peering into the cockpit, you'll see a dash filled with test gauges and a center stack equipped with several switches and connectors. Gone are the rear seats, replaced with a big hump just touching the back of the front seats.
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