Ruf riders: meeting up with the Compton Cowboys in a Ruf Rodeo

Clutch fully out in first gear is just a smidge too fast, so I’m being forced to balance it on the biting point and my left thigh is, frankly, burning like a b******. All I have to do is drive slowly in a straight line, but that’s easier said than done when the flanks of two sizeable horses are practically brushing the rear quarter windows, while spurred boots dangle precariously close to the wing mirrors. One sneeze and the insurance claim will be surpassed only by the veterinary bill... and yet I can’t grimace, only grin, as we roll around the neighbourhood in a Signal Orange, jacked up 911 tribute, escorted four deep by the Compton Cowboys.

The city of Compton, in the orbit of Los Angeles, is indelibly linked with rap royalty like NWA and Kendrick Lemar, but also gang violence, drugs and poverty, a perception happily hyped by the music and film industries. Understandable then, that my plan to drive a $1.25m carbon fibre sports car into the heart of Compton to meet a bunch of strangers was met with a few raised eyebrows. But the message this bunch are preaching isn’t guns and gangs, it’s peace, love and education through a medium you’d least expect to find in the middle of the urban sprawl.

We’re here to meet a collective of mould breakers who turned their back on the streets to pursue something more meaningful, to make their mark on the community they love, and show kids they can choose which path to take. We’re here in a Ruf Rodeo because badge/story alignment doesn’t get any better than this, and obvious is underrated. Really, it’s our Trojan horse, to take some cool pictures, have a drive and to hear the cowboys’ incredible story first hand.

Photography: Huck Mountain

We arrive on West Caldwell Street around 9am and it’s the picture of serenity – no bullets flying, police sirens wailing or crowds swarming, just a regular suburban road, low rise houses, gated front gardens, the hum of a freeway in the distance. No sign of the menagerie we’re about to walk into either... until we’re greeted at the gate by Randy Savvy wearing shorts, spurred boots, a logo’d hoodie and a cowboy hat. He leads us down the driveway and out the back where it opens up, spectacularly and unexpectedly.

To the left is a little petting zoo with two enormous but astonishingly agile pigs, a few chickens and a pony, along the back probably eight to 10 horses – all donated or rescued – chomping away happily beneath makeshift stables with corrugated iron roofs. A couple of trailers emblazoned with the CC logo and a large shelter with tables and chairs encircle a sandy paddock. It’s rustic, authentic and startling to see something so at odds with its surroundings.

Buoyed by the Rodeo’s extra ground clearance, 4WD and knobbly Goodyears we park it in the centre of the dirt, resisting the temptation to rip a few donuts, and get Randy over to explain what exactly is going on.

“My auntie, the founder of this place, was a cowgirl. She grew up down the road in Harbor City, and through watching westerns with my grandpa got super passionate about horses. Back then it was a lot more like swamp land, and a lot of the black community from the post-Depression era came west from the south. They had a farming and ranching ethos in the blood. Later she worked in real estate and that’s how she stumbled across this neighbourhood.”

This neighbourhood is known as Richland Farms and where Compton was first founded. Originally an agricultural community, it was deemed to remain agricultural by Griffith Compton himself – meaning permission to keep livestock and ride horses in the streets, even as the city closed in around them. “She was blown away and felt like this was her dream. And so she bought that house in 1988, my dad got this one in 1992, then we got this one in 1996 and we just got another one across the street. So around ’96 we were able to join the yards and open it up.

“To begin with she had a couple of horses and it was just for our family. But as we started getting older, all the issues of the community started to become more prominent. This is the late 1980s, early 1990s and she was like, ‘Wow, I’ve moved here to follow my dream with the horses, but it’s becoming such a bad place.’ They quickly decided that instead of just leaving, they would stay and try and make a difference and there was this light bulb moment when they realised what if you use the horses to help the kids? It was originally known as The Compton Junior Posse.”

The idea is poetically simple. If the kids want to ride they’ve got to show a report card, their parent or guardian has to confirm they’re in school, the kid has to prove they’re “behaving, handling business at home and being a solid young kid. First you have to learn all the important skills and disciplines – how to groom a horse, how to clean stalls, how to feed and water... then you can ride. Riding is the privilege, it’s the bonus. It’s a cherry on top. It started to create a positive movement of kids who were wanting to ride and getting their act together. The Compton Cowboys are that story. We are the kids. It saved our lives.”

I pause Randy there, for what seems like an entirely insignificant activity given the gravity of his story, and call the rest of the guys over so they can have a poke around the car. I resist the temptation to rub it in that I have 610 horses from my water cooled, twin turbo, dry sumped 3.6-litre flat six, while they have only eight, and do my best to explain this is and never was a Porsche 911... it has a bespoke carbon fibre tub wrapped in 911-lookalike carbon fibre clothes, all new from the ground up.

Gun the throttle and there’s a proper old school pause as the turbos fill their lungs

The colour, the lightweight five spoke 18in wheels, the sound system and especially the Navajo-style Native American interior trim are all singled out for praise, as is the unnecessarily pretty engine. It’s a design that looked a little clunky when we first saw pictures of it, but up close, in a real world setting with just the right amount of grit, it’s a droolworthy object.

I start to lose them as I explain it runs dual wishbone, push rod suspension with active dampers, designed for off road abuse and to increase the ride height by 240mm, but they light up again when I ask about the car culture around here. “Low riders, old school, muscle cars, racecars. The main thing is just doing donuts in the middle of an intersection...”

Later that day I don’t partake in the local custom, but I do take the Rodeo for a proper tear up on some quieter roads around LA and this thing is an absolute ripper. Over 600bhp motivating around 1,350kg tends to do that, but honestly it makes the official Porsche 911 Dakar feel mute and sluggish. Gun the throttle and there’s a proper old school pause as the turbos fill their lungs, then projectile acceleration with the nose canted towards the sky. It feels light, playful, gloriously interactive and adjustable and we didn’t even get the chance to drive it hard on the dirt. It’s full of tradition and old school flavour, but fit for the modern world... sound familiar?

After 30 years of service, around 2017, Randy’s auntie Mayisha Akbar was ready to retire and close the whole thing down. Randy, Anthony, Keenan and Carlton who are here today – four of the kids raised by this place – knew it was time to take leadership and make it relevant in a modern context. That’s when the Compton Cowboys brand was born, and the decision was taken to fully embrace social media, merch and any opportunities in the entertainment industry that came along. If you haven’t seen the Guinness advert they starred in back in 2017... head to YouTube, it’s a special bit of filmmaking.

We speak to Keenan, who took a starring role in that film. “We’re not expected to be in these types of sports. Just like Venus and Serena took over tennis we’re the modern day takeover. We know farm life, we know horses, pigs, goats, chickens, our mission is just to spread that word to other kids, and they gravitate to it because it looks cool and it’s diverse. Problem is, nowadays they’re just on the screen. It’s like, nah, go outside, go touch some dirt. Go roll around. Go do something. Go get some Sunny D.”

It’s Randy who takes the lead with brand extensions, though. “We do a lot of third party collabs. We just did a big drop with Forever 21, and we’ll probably do some stuff with Adidas, Ethika and other cool lifestyle brands. The main thing is making a brand mean something, so you’re not just wearing something that looks cool, it stands for something, it’s a mission you’re involved in. It’s been a rollercoaster, but it’s been beautiful. We’ve grown, scaled, impacted a lot of kids. Our lives have changed. We have something to commit to and it’s a privilege to take care of these animals.”

Growing the brand and creating a sustainable business is just the side hustle, though. There’s a deeper philosophy to be passed on. “In a neighbourhood like this a lack of value for life makes it easy to shoot. But when you raise animals you get an empathy for living things. So when you grow up and go out in the streets and it’s crazy out there, you’re not inclined to hurt or harm somebody, you want to love them, be empathetic towards them and offer help.” Not just a stables then, a place of redemption. Less cowboys, more knights in shining armour.

Ruf Rodeo

Price: $1.25m 
Engine: 3.6-litre twin turbo flat six, 610bhp, 516lb ft 
Transmission: 6spd manual, 4WD 
Performance: 0–62mph in n/a secs, 155mph 
Economy: 19.9mpg, 329g/km CO2 
Weight: 1,350kg (est)