By the late 1980s, RUF was an established manufacturer in Germany, providing tuning services for Porsche automobiles. Deciding that the company needed to offer a complete model to top their range of offerings, company owner Alois Ruf Jr. set out to develop a vehicle based on the Porsche 930, both the most powerful of Porsche's offerings at the time and the fastest road legal car for sale in Germany during the 1980s.
RUF replaced factory body panels, including the doors, hood and engine cover with aluminum pieces, helping knock 200 kilograms off the 930's factory curb weight, while considerable modification was made to the Porsche-built 3.3 litre, single-turbocharged flat six-cylinder engine, bringing total output to 469 horsepower and 408 ft·lbf. of torque. In addition, the CTR was given the narrow-body that normally aspirated 911s came with for aerodynamic reasons. Possibly the CTR's most significant upgrade over the 930 was its available RUF-spec six-speed transmission, replacing the four-speed unit that the model was factory equipped with. Modifications to the vehicle's suspension and braking systems made up the other mechanical modifications while RUF badging, wheels and interior pieces were added for visual appeal.
The company debuted their in-house unit at the end of 1987 as the "CTR Yellowbird", named so for its yellow paintwork. Pricing was set at $223,000 per unit, although that number could vary depending on if a given customer ordered their car directly from RUF or brought in a unit purchased via dealer for conversion.
Porsche discontinued the 930 in 1989, temporarily forcing a stop to the production of new CTRs. However in 1991 Porsche debuted their 964-platform 911 Turbo, which used a slightly modified and updated version of the same 3.3 litre flat-six that had powered the 930. With minor hardware changes, RUF was able to continue offering CTR conversions based on the 964 platform, and although acceleration and top speed performance remained unchanged, the 964 CTR benefited from increased handling capability thanks to the platform advancements of the 964 over the "G-Series" platform that the 930 had been based on. In addition, the 964 based CTR was both better equipped and more comfortable than the 930 based version. The production of factory-new CTRs was permanently shut down after the end of the 1992 model year, when Porsche replaced the 3.3 litre turbo motor with a new 3.6 litre unit, however RUF did eventually start offering turbo upgrades for the 3.6 litre model as well as turbo add-on systems for 964s powered by the naturally aspirated version of the 3.6, creating what was sold as RGT.
The CTR was succeeded by the CTR2.
