1989 Ruf 911 CTR Yellowbird

Sold for $1,022,500 at 2018 RM Sothebys : Monterey.
A bright yellow RUF was enthusiastically tested by Road & Track magazine for their July 1987 issue, and quickly earned the nickname of 'Yellow Bird' by RUF's staff and the journalists in attendance. The article was determined to find the world's fastest car and had assembled a myriad of notorious names such as the Ferrari Testarossa, a 288 GTO, and a Porsche 959 at Volkswagen's Ehra-Lessien test track. Even amongst these automotive celebrities, it was the RUF that made the biggest impression. Its color scheme and performance outshone the rest of the cars assembled.

This particular example is the 10th of the 29 original CTR 'Yellow Birds' originally built by RUF. It was built for RUF's distributor in Switzerland and was delivered on February 10th of 1989. The car was instead sold to a German client who was waiting on his own CTR but was growing impatient with his order and purchased this car instead while waiting for the one he ordered to his specifications. When his original order was fulfilled, he kept both cars.

This car left the RUF factory finished in black and rode on RUF's trademark five-spoke wheels. It had a grey interior with black Recaro bucket seats and a roll cage. Currently, the car has 52,200 km on its odometer. It has never been damaged or restored and remains in its original condition.

By Daniel Vaughan | Jan 2019