Gallery: five fantastic Rufs

This week, Ruf has launched its UK showroom in Kent. For the uninitiated, Ruf is a German carmaker whose products riff of Porsches, but take them in a different, often wilder direction.

Needless to say, then, it’s superb news that they’re more readily available on our shores. These are cars we need in our lives.

Over to Mark Sekula, co-director of Ruf Automobile UK: “The UK has tremendous potential for RUF cars and it will be our task to establish a sound base for both pre and post-sales support for customers in this country.”

So if you want a 911-based supercar with 800bhp put through its rear wheels from the factory, it’s now become a lot easier to acquire one.

Still not convinced? Here are five Ruf greats to whet your appetite…

While most of Ruf’s models directly resemble their Porsche relation, the CTR3 is its own thing. Bits of 911 here, touches of Cayman there… and a 777bhp six-cylinder turbo beneath that magnificently slatted engine cover.

Its power figure isn’t its most Top Trumps-worthy stat, though. No, that honour goes to its 236mph claimed top speed. That’s 19mph more than the claims Ferrari and Lamborghini make of their most potent supercars.

Ruf isn’t just a purveyor of new Porsche-based goodness. A number of its current products are spun from 911s old, this 964-based Evo among the most appealing of all. Especially when bona fide 964 RSs are so hard (and expensive) to source.

At the Evo’s core is a 425bhp turbocharged 3.6-litre flat-six, from which Ruf promises the behaviour of a naturally aspirated engine. It operates through a six-speed manual gearbox, and whisks the wee Evo (this is from the days when 911s were still small…) to 199mph. Nice.

A Ruf from the middle of the last decade now. As your eyes may already have deciphered, this one has a previous generation Porsche Cayman as its contributory model. Except it’s rather more hot rod-esque, isn’t it? What with its candy red paint, blanked out rear windows and lightly dished alloys...

While the Cayman S of its day had a peak of 316bhp, the RK offered up 440bhp, with a supercharger to thank for its extra muscle. The result? A 4.0sec 0-62mph time and a 190mph top speed, figures which far outstrip its base car. With a 200,000-euro tag when new, though, so did its price.

Back to the current line-up, now. And if the thought of driving that 777bhp CTR3 gave you the heebie-jeebies, then make sure you’re sat comfortably: this considerably more 911-shaped RTR has 802bhp. And you can have it with the rear wheels driven only. Yikes.

You can have your RTR with all-wheel drive too, mind, though both come with a delightfully traditional six-speed manual gearbox. Its top speed is quoted at ‘220mph-plus’. Might want to check the weather conditions a few miles ahead if you’re considering finding out just how ‘plus’ it’ll go…

There’s only one car we could end on; the car which established both Ruf and the Nürburgring as regulars in the petrolhead vernacular back in 1989. They did so with the clip ‘Faszination on the Nürburgring’, a viral video before YouTube, or even the internet, could catalyse such things. The Yellowbird became an instant star, and so much more than the Porsche 911 it first resembles.

Beneath the skin is much tuning, with twin turbos yielding 469bhp (though some reckon it unofficially tops 500bhp), a dog-leg manual gearbox and some astounding performance figures for its day: 211mph and a 7.3sec 0-100mph time are staggering now, never mind the late 1980s. Ruf has many great cars in to its name, but there can be no argument about which is the greatest.