Working on Porsches is like staying at Hotel California; you can check out, but you can never leave! After he retired from Porsche in 2020, the next chapter of Tony Hatter’s Porsche adventure found him engaged in a project for German specialist manufacturer Alois Ruf, whom he first met in 1991 while working on the 993’s design.
First, however, a bit of a 993 historical background. Many years ago, a senior Porsche executive explained to me why the 993 was the shortest-lived 911 generation, with just a four-year production life. In the 1990s, Porsche was going through hard times, and the clever recovery plan hatched by its newly-appointed CEO, Wendelin Wiedeking, involved a revolutionary cost-saving platform share arrangement between the forthcoming 996-gen 911 and 986-gen Boxster.
Usually, a car company launches a flagship model first, with the subsequent trickle-down image benefitting the less expensive follow-on models. As the 911 Carrera has always been Porsche’s staple model, the new water-cooled flat-six Boxster was planned as a relatively lower-volume entry-level roadster.
Launching the Boxster first would be a litmus test, with the marketplace reaction to this revolutionary mid-engine two-seater used to decide the launch window for the 996 Carrera. Wiedeking’s logic was that if the Boxster was a flop the 993 Carrera would stay in production for two more years, living out its original planned life cycle. However, if Boxster sales took off then the 993 would be replaced by the 996 Carrera in 1998 to maximize the economies of scale delivered by the new shared platform. The Boxster sold like hotcakes, and the rest, as they say, is history. The knock-on effect was a two-year shorter life cycle for the 993 than planned back in 1990.
“We just had enough time to launch the Carrera 2 and 4, Turbo, Targa, Cabriolet, C4S, and C2S when the plug was pulled,” said Hatter wryly. “So we never had the chance to make a 993 Speedster, which customers of the G-Series and 964 models had enjoyed.”
Hatter was still thinking about a 993 Speedster after he retired when, by sheer chance, another recently retired colleague from Porsche’s racing department asked if he would like to accompany him on a visit to Ruf Automobile.
“I have known Alois Ruf for a very long time, and we were given the grand tour of his facilities that day,” Hatter recalled. “To my surprise, one of the cars under construction in the assembly hall was a wide-body 993 Speedster. Alois spoke with the customer, and they both agreed that this Ruf Speedster project should have my design input.”
Coincidentally, at the same time, another Ruf customer was interested in a ‘Berg Spyder’ based on a 993 platform. Christened the ‘Bergmeister’, this unique design draws inspiration from the ultra-rare 1968 Porsche 909 Bergspyder, the 1968 Trans Am 911S of Tony Adamovich, which famously wears no rear bumper, and the 1997 Porsche GT1 Evo.
“After I did a few sketches, Kurbos Design in Stuttgart digitally created the surfacing, which we then visualized using the latest high-tech 3D glasses,” Hatter explained. “Treading a brave new path, we skipped the clay model stage and used the digital data to create the tooling.”
The customer was delighted with the plan, and their carbon-fiber-bodied Ruf Bergmeister was finished in around five months. It debuted at Monterey Car Week in the summer of 2022 and then in Europe at Villa d’Este in May 2023.
The only one of its kind in existence, the Bergmeister is normally tucked away in its owner’s garage, but as our annual pilgrimage to Ruf this year coincided with the car arriving in Pfaffenhausen for some maintenance work. We sought permission to carry out a photo shoot and drive, which, as you can see, worked out.
The locals in Pfaffenhausen and the surrounding villages are used to bespoke Ruf cars and every Porsche model under the sun, from a 356 Speedster to the latest 992-gen 911 Turbo S prowling the streets here. But not since the mid-engine CTR3 prototype broke cover in 2007 have I seen so much attention directed towards a car.
As you drink in the dramatic form of this unique Speedster, you also clock the fact that it is physically compact in a way that increasingly eludes modern Porsches. Learning that its core is a spare 993 bodyshell that Ruf acquired many years ago makes the reason for these modest dimensions clear.
A fun car for high days and holidays, a Speedster like this is a pure driving machine, period. If the sun is out, you get toasted; if it rains, you get wet. It is as simple as that. If this ode to the joys of early motoring does not jive with you, then a Speedster is not your cup of tea.
The sun is not beating down on us today, but it is dry and not too cold. Still, there is the wind chill factor to contend with, and open-air motoring requires a good jacket and perhaps a hat.
Climbing into the driver’s seat, I note the minimalist interior generously swathed in gray Alcantara, with black, white, and green Pepita cloth centers for the one-piece lightweight carbon-fiber seats. As with all Speedsters, there are no side windows, and here, the short, frameless, compound curved Perspex windshield is your only protection from air molecules, suicidal insect life, and potential bird strikes.
In terms of soundtrack, I expected the Bergmeister to sound like a 993 Turbo Cabriolet with a Ruf BTR conversion. But since Porsche never made a 993 Turbo Cabriolet the Bergmeister eloquently answers both questions.
Twisting the ignition key brings an explosion of sound from behind my ears as the turbocharged air-cooled flat-six bursts into life, followed by a deep burble as it settles into a steady idle. Looking around as we join the road outside Ruf’s HQ is made easy by the 360-degree visibility of literally no roof and no windscreen pillars. In fact, even in a modern Cabriolet you have to be careful of objects that might just be hidden by the thick windscreen pillars.
The latest incarnation of the legendary Ruf BTR single turbo intercooled 3,600-cc flat-six delivers 450 horsepower and 443 lb-ft of torque, which are huge numbers for an open car weighing a tad under 2,425 pounds. The combination of over 400 hp/ton and potential battering from the airflow means you are not going to use all of this in anger anyway. Thus, an excursion in the Bergmeister will always be about back-to-basics motoring pleasure against a backdrop of open country or mountain scenery rather than an attempt at a new land speed record.
That said, I was surprised at just how effective the windscreen is at deflecting the worst of the air turbulence, at least for someone of my medium height. On that score, I never reached the point of feeling uncomfortable at speeds of up to 90 mph, which is frankly fast enough to enjoy an interesting road in such a car.
The power is there for the asking, of course, and the strong push in the back when you ask the 450 horses to gallop is intoxicating in itself, as is the scream of the flat-six and the very audible flutter of the wastegate as it releases pent up boost pressure with each upshift. Compared to a BTR coupe, the Bergmeister exhaust has been made a little less restrictive, and this is certainly appreciated as part of the very visceral al fresco driving experience.
The compact Bergmeister is much more rigid than a 993 Cabriolet; the full carbon-fiber bodywork significantly boosts the torsional stiffness of the 993’s steel core in a way that mostly removes the scuttle shake of a 1990s-era Cabriolet.
This is just as well considering the loads fed into the frame by the powerful engine, the limited-slip differential in the six-speed manual gearbox, and the sheer mechanical grip of the 245/35ZR19 and 285/30ZR19 Goodyears wrapped around the 8.5J and 10.0J x 19-inch Ruf center-lock alloy wheels. With 350 mm (13.8 in.) cross-drilled, vented discs all around clamped by six and four-pot calipers front and rear, the Bergmeister is actually over-braked for a car of its weight, but that is never a bad thing.
So far, more than a dozen Ruf enthusiasts have registered their interest in this unique car, so it may even go into limited production. Either way, the Ruf Bergmeister Spyder completes Tony Hatter’s set of Porsche 993 variants with a flourish.
