RUF has finally done it. They’ve built a Porsche 911 you can aim at the nearest desert without immediately calling your chiropractor afterwards. It’s called the Rodeo, and while at first glance it looks like someone gave a Carrera a pair of hiking boots and told it to “be more outdoorsy,” this thing is far more serious.
First, let’s kill the obvious thought: this isn’t just a 911 with a lift kit. The Rodeo sits on a bespoke carbon monocoque chassis, which makes it the only off-road–ready supercar of its kind. That’s right—RUF didn’t just take Stuttgart’s finest and slap on mud tyres. They built a completely new skeleton designed to take a beating while still letting you commute at warp speed.
The debut car wears Jordan Black paint set against white forged wheels with a single central nut. It’s very “stormtrooper in cowboy boots.” But the stance tells you the story: anti-roll bars integrated into the bumpers, chunky fender extensions, and a rear track widened by a full 142 mm. That’s not just for show. That’s so it doesn’t fall over the moment you point it at a sand dune.
And under the skin? Oh, just a 3.6-litre turbocharged flat-six, pumping out 618 horsepower and 700 Nm of torque, fed through a 6-speed manual and an adaptive all-wheel-drive system with variable torque split. Translation: you can drop the clutch, and the Rodeo will decide whether the sand, gravel, or snow should be redistributed to your rear tyres, your front tyres, or into the atmosphere as dust.
Suspension is handled by pushrod-activated coilovers with active dampers—the sort of setup you normally see on F1 cars, not things with mudflaps. Those dampers also lift the car 242 mm higher than RUF’s road-going SCR, meaning you could, in theory, clear speed bumps without clenching. Stopping power is courtesy of carbon-ceramic brakes with six-piston calipers and 350 mm discs all round.
And just in case you’re wondering, yes—RUF also brought along some company for Monterey. The CTR3 Evo turned up wearing Howe White paint and an 811-horsepower, 990 Nm turbocharged 3.8-litre, because apparently, RUF customers want to bend time as well as space. Meanwhile, the RUF Tribute kept things air-cooled with a twin-turbo 3.6 that still belts out 558 horsepower, proving that nostalgia doesn’t have to be slow.
But the Rodeo is the headline act here. It’s not a Dakar homage, nor is it a cynical cash grab on the SUV craze. It’s RUF saying: why not? Why shouldn’t a flat-six supercar wear hiking boots, climb over rocks, and then annihilate a mountain road in the same breath?
The only real question is—who’s brave enough to take their €700,000 carbon monocoque cowboy up a muddy trail?
Source: RUF
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