The arrival of the BTR marked the beginning of RUF’s global reputation, establishing it as the most highly regarded of Porsche tuning firms.

The BTR was inspired by the FIA’s Group B regulations, using the 930 Turbo body and 935-sourced engine internals as a basis with which to produce a 375-horsepower, 190-mph sports car that was then successfully tested by journalists against the fastest contemporary models from Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Porsche.

While RUF was able to provide aftermarket BTR upgrades to an owner’s vehicle, it also provided complete cars hand-built from “bodies in white” obtained directly from Porsche, which received their own unique “W09” RUF chassis numbers.

The exact number of BTR examples produced is not known, but it is thought that only approximately 25 units were handcrafted from the ground up on blank RUF chassis.

Widely regarded as the fastest-accelerating road car in the world during production, the BTR was consistently revised from 1984 until 1993 with ...