There are a few racing videos out there, looming in the far reaches of the internet, that inevitably every fan with oil pumping in their arteries has seen time and time again. One that never seems to get tiresome is the famous onboard footage shot nearly thirty years ago with a young test driver flogging a murderous monstercar around the Nurburgring Nordschelife. Ruf has had a decent following, but it’s certain that after a gearhead gets to witness the historic footage, they’ll have an avid fan for life.

The car in focus is the CTR 3, known affectionately as “Yellowbird,” which is based on a narrowbody 3.2-liter Carrera chassis, using a 3.4-liter twin-turbocharged flat-six, making somewhere around 550 horsepower, all of which had to be harnessed with 215-section front tires and 255-section rears. For something lightened with aluminum doors and hood, that is enough poke to shove this unassuming 911-lookalike to 100 in 7.8 seconds, and a top speed of 221 mph — which made it the world’s fastest production car in 1987.

Ruf’s test driver, Stefan Roser, reminisces on the experience with typical Teutonic calm. His concerns for the famous lap did not revolve around his own mortality, but rather the lifespan of the tires, which weren’t intended for a D1-style run around the entire Nordschliefe. So, in order to avoid a blowout at speed in a very pricey piece of machinery, his slides were kept within a certain range — not overdoing it and clearly using a shallow angle in the quickest corners. Clever, talented and ironically, somewhat conservative in his approach.

The Yellowbird exudes poise despite its nervous rear end. To be able to initiate drifts long before the corner without the use of a handbrake takes skills and a setup that encourages that sort of tomfoolery. Having the earth-moving torque to spin the tires in any of the five gears only adds to the car’s poise with the rear wheels lit, trails of blue smoke pouring from the wheel wells.

The Yellowbird in its most comfortable state.

There are some who might feel that the Yellowbird’s willingness to oversteer and the length of its shifter throw are comically-bad, but it seems right as rain with ‘ol Roser. He’s comfy with an old-fashioned fire-breather letting go at 100+ mph, and never once do we see the car getting away from him. This car merely heightens the dramatic conundrum that is the classic 911, which is that odd mixture of response and communication with a nervous, tail-happy machine that doesn’t encourage one to take many liberties.

With enough practice, it seems that liberties are in fact what need to be taken with a car like this. With all that weight sitting over the rear and no driver aids to micro-manage slides, it seems as if there were never a better car for fast, lurid, and still-delicate drifting. Sure, Roser had plenty of chances to put the ‘ol girl in the fencing, but never once did he put a wheel wrong. While it might not be easy to drive, I’m sure that Roser felt at one with this marvelous monster.