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"Bring a Trailer just uncovered this 1984 Ruf Turbo Cabriolet. The car just sold on eBay for $54,000, but was once a Road &amp;amp;amp; Track feature car. We dug through the archives to find the original text, which included a good bit about the original 911 Turbo and comments from Peter Egan. Good stuff. Take a minute and dive in. It was unlike any production car Porsche had ever built. With its wildly flared fenders, wide alloy road wheels and low-profile tires, broad front air dam and peculiarly shaped rear spoiler, this 911 was certainly distinctive. But the car&amp;#039;s magic was more than skin deep because lurking beneath the rear decklid was a special version of Porsche&amp;#039;s familiar SOHC flat-6. A quick peek into the engine compartment didn&amp;#039;t reveal very much\u2014just the standard Bosch K-Jetronic with some extra ducting. But if you got down on your hands and knees and looked under the left rear corner of the valance panel near the exhaust tip, you saw a doughnut-shape casting that made this Porsche so different. The component was a turbocharger, and although its presence on a production automobile was not unprecedented (GM had tried turbos on the Chevrolet Corvair and Olds F-85 in the Sixties), this was the first time the principle was used in such a manner as to drastically improve performance, as our group of American automotive journalists was to discover. On a sticky summer day in mid-1975, Porsche-Audi of North America had transported us to the verdant plains of central Ohio, where an impressive facility called the Transportation Research Center is located. For the uninitiated, TRC is an independent proving ground where anyone who is willing to pay the tab can test any sort of wheeled vehicle. But what makes the Ohio plant unique is its high-speed test track: an elongated oval with 2-mile-long straightaways and 25-degree banked turns. You can drive the fastest automobile in the world around this circuit without lifting, and you can take your hands off the wheel in mid-turn while doing so. The camber of the pavement holds the car in its groove and eases it onto the straight at the exit of the turn.  Knowing all of this about TRC, you begin to understand why Porsche had chosen this setting to introduce the Turbo to the American automotive press. Here was a road car that could accelerate from 0 to 60 in 6.7 seconds and easily exceed 155 mph when the 234-bhp 6-cylinder engine finally gathered itself up in top gear. It needed a special place to unwind. As we eagerly queued up beside each of the two Turbos, Porsche-Audi public relations chief Tom McDonald issued this plea: &amp;quot;After you&amp;#039;ve taken a fast lap or two, back off the throttle for a while and let the engine cool a bit. Because if you keep the turbo on full boost for a long time, you&amp;#039;re liable to fry the engine.&amp;quot; Not everyone heeded this warning and every so often a car would come in, smoking and popping and smelling of hot oil and baking paint. Yet, throughout the afternoon, the Turbos kept circulating and at the end of the day they were intact, a testimonial to the thoroughness of Teutonic engineering. Logically speaking, this would be the perfect time to tell you about some of this engineering. But I&amp;#039;ll save that for later because right now I&amp;#039;d rather share with you my experiences of driving that first U.S. Turbo. See, the Turbo is a car that appeals to your senses rather than your intellect. To begin with, it looks like the be-all and end-all of 9 11s, brutish and, yes, even menacing. Climb inside, belt up and you are momentarily lulled into thinking you are about to drive just another Porsche. But with a twist of the ignition key, the engine roars to life and its peculiar, muffled sound suggests that something exciting is about to happen. And it does. Moving away from rest in 1st gear, there is a brief, uneventful period as the turbocharger comes up to speed (about 80,000 rpm!). But at 4000 engine rpm all hell breaks loose and you are thrust back, uhh!, into your seat as the tachometer needle zooms toward the 6700-rpm redline. It happens so quickly that you can barely lift in time to shift into 2nd. That&amp;#039;s why there&amp;#039;s a rev-limiting device that cuts in to temporarily shut off the fuel flow when the engine reaches 7000. Thunk! Into 2nd and the experience begins anew. By now you are traveling almost 100 mph and there are two gears left! Make that one. Now you are doing nearly 140 and it&amp;#039;s only when 4th is finally engaged that you are not once again slammed back into your seat, because at this point, the engine&amp;#039;s energy is spent pushing through the air&amp;#039;s density. At these speeds, steering wheel movements are made in delicate increments, especially in a Porsche. The German car&amp;#039;s steering is traditionally quick and as speed increases, a little input becomes a lot of output. The task becomes more difficult if the road surface is uneven. You see, another characteristic of all Porsches is a fairly high degree of bump steer, the juddering of the steering wheel as the car passes over irregularities. Thus, steering becomes a balancing act of holding the wheel steady, while turning it enough to keep the car on the road.  On an open, straight highway such as a German Autobahn or on the oval at TRC, you can savor the car&amp;#039;s incredible speed for more than just a moment. You can listen to the wind hissing about the A-pillars and feel the throbbing of the Porsche&amp;#039;s 3.0- liter air-cooled six at your back. The tachometer, always the most visible instrument in a 911, is frozen at 3:00 o&amp;#039;clock, the speedo just to the right of it is at 4:00 and practically on its 160- mph peg. Can you really be going this fast? Yes. And once you have, it&amp;#039;s an experience you won&amp;#039;t soon forget. Ultimately, even the longest and straightest road bends or dips and you have to slow down. This is when you discover the other things that make the Turbo so outstanding. Its brakes are huge ventilated discs borrowed from Porsche&amp;#039;s racing Carreras; its suspension bits are cast aluminum and are lighter and stronger than their standard steel counterparts. Changes have been made to the suspension geometry to reduce camber change and thus improve stability and handling. Practically speaking, this translates to the sure-footedness one usually finds only in race cars. The Turbo is one of the best handling road cars in the world\u2014in the hands of an experienced driver. One who understands the darker side of the Porsche&amp;#039;s nature. Because the engine is at the rear, the Turbo, and any 911, will hang out its tail if you lift off the throttle in a turn. Wide tires help reduce this tendency, but in a car as fast as the Turbo, it still exists. But just as the engine serves as a pendulum that tries to swing the car off the road, it also provides ballast to give the rear wheels incredible traction. Get on the power, and the wheels just hunker down and push the car forward. It matters little which way the front wheels are pointing. If the power is excessive and front bite lacking, a Turbo will understeer off the road. Thus, driving this car at its limits is another balancing act, playing throttle against brakes, forward motion against lateral forces. If you do it right, the Turbo rewards you with a drive that is better than anything found in an amusement park. If you do it wrong, well ... To those who hope to try, I offer this bit of information: Most Turbos that crash fly off the road traveling backward. The first batch of Porsche Turbos went on sale in the fall of 1975 as 1976 models. The factory earmarked about 200 of the total 626 built for the U.S. where they sold for $26,000. For 1978, the Turbo got an intercooler and a new rear spoiler that was restyled primarily to fit over the intercooler atop the engine. And with the intercooler, there was a 3.3-liter engine with 253 bhp on tap. Along with this increase in horsepower came an increase in performance\u20140 to 60 mph in 5.0 sec. The price went up too. It was now $34,000. Unfortunately, the chance to buy a ticket on the world&amp;#039;s best ride came to an end late in 1979 when Porsche-Audi of North America stopped importing the 930 Turbo to our shores. The last 50 U.S. Turbos came with special dash plaques and a certificate signed by Ferry Porsche. Although the factory continued to build this model, only gray market cars made it to America through the governmental curtain.  They still do, but the car pictured here is a cut above the usual federalized import. It is a Ruf Porsche Turbo, meaning it has been hand assembled from factory parts in Alois Rufs specialty shop in Pfaffenhausen, West Germany. Ruf&amp;#039;s primary business is Porsche tuning\u2014personalizing 900-series Porsches. He also builds to order 10 to 12 cars a year and is licensed as a constructor by the German government. The Ruf Porsche is special not only because it is a Turbo, but also because it is a cabriolet. The factory doesn&amp;#039;t offer this combination at present (though they may do so in the future) and if you want one, you must come to Herr Ruf. Nor does the factory build production Turbos with an adjustable wastegate. This last device adds another thrill to driving a 930. Twist the knurled black knob counterclockwise and boost pressure is reduced to 5.0 psi. At this setting, the engine develops 280 bhp. Perfect for, say, driving on icy roads. Twist the knob in the other direction and boost pressure increases until it reaches a maximum of 13.5 psi. This is 1 psi more than what the turbo puts out in its normal, fixed state. As a result of all this, the otherwise stock Porsche engine goes from 300 to 330 bhp in European trim. Installing the requisite U.S. emission controls brings the horsepower back down to about 300 bhp, just what the European model has. When the &amp;quot; screw&amp;quot; is turned in and the turbo is at full boost, acceleration is explosive. There is a bit of turbo lag, although it&amp;#039;s not as noticeable as with a factory-built 930. This is because the Ruf Cabrio uses a specially built 5-speed gearbox rather than the usual 4-speed. Thus, 1st, 2nd and 3rd are lower (2.79, 1.60 and 1.12 vs 2.25, 1.30 and 0.89 respectively) and with an extra gear, the spread of ratios is more even. Consequently, the rush of power that begins when the tachometer needle reaches 3500 rpm continues without interruption until maximum revs (6700 in all gears except 5th) are reached. It takes the Ruf Turbo 5.3 sec to go from 0 to 60 mph, 13.2 sec to get to 100 and 14.2 sec to reach the quarter-mile. Plenty quick, but certainly not breathtaking until we explain that they were achieved by merely driving the car off the line, waiting for the turbocharger to develop maximum boost, then rowing the through the gears. When a similar Ruf Porsche was tested in Germany, the driver revved the engine to 6000 rpm and side\u00AD stepped the clutch. He recorded some incredibly quick acceleration times, but cracked the flywheel doing so. Our times reflect what we consider a more prudent driving style. Once the Ruf Turbo is under way, it really scoots. In 20 sec the car has reached 120 mph, and not long after that it&amp;#039;s motoring along at top speed. Here&amp;#039;s where our story gets exciting. With the top down the Ruf Cabrio will do 154 mph, simply incredible when you consider the aerodynamic drag. Top up, the car does 160\u2014at 5820 rpm. What&amp;#039;s it like to be practically sucked out of your socks? Memorable. Senior Editor Peter Egan describes it best:  &amp;quot;All my life I&amp;#039;ve been hearing about cars with mind-blowing performance, warp-5 acceleration and all the other cliches that describe the rapid buildup of speed. In driving those cars I&amp;#039;ve often been disappointed. However, the 930 is a genuinely fast car, the fastest I&amp;#039;ve ever driven. What&amp;#039;s startling is not only its top speed but how quickly the car gets there. Here is a production automobile that really does pin you to your seat. Yet, the airflow doesn&amp;#039;t rip your head off.&amp;quot; At speed, the Ruf front air dam (with integral oil cooler) and the factory rear spoiler work well. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s the usual Porsche wheel jounce over big bumps, but the car stays in its lane, doesn&amp;#039;t wander and generally continues to feel attached to the earth.&amp;quot; says Peter. All Porsches have good brakes, and the Turbo&amp;#039;s are no exception. They stop the car quickly\u2014all day long. Unfortunately, our braking distances are not what they should be, because on test day the car was on new pads that were not bedded in thoroughly. With a bit more use, we&amp;#039;d expect the Cabrio&amp;#039;s stopping distances to be on par with those of the 930 coupe R&amp;amp;amp;T tested in 1978. That car took 137 ft to come to a stop from 60 mph and 237 ft to do so from 80. If there&amp;#039;s a negative side to our story it is that most of us can&amp;#039;t afford to sample Mr Ruf&amp;#039;s wares. The Turbo Cabrio costs $82,000. Although, to be fair, this includes suspension modifications, an elaborate Clarion stereo system, the Ruf 5-speed (price: $6500), front spoiler with oil cooler, auxiliary gauges and a full leather interior. By the way, these items can be ordered separately. And they can be installed on existing Porsches (900- series only, if you please). For those who do have the price of admission, there&amp;#039;s the satisfaction of owning a distinctive automobile and enjoying the unforgettable rush of sensations that only a Porsche Turbo can bring. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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