It’s almost poetic to have pulled into the RUF Automobile headquarters in Pfaffenhausen, Germany for my meeting with the Ruf family in a Mercedes AMG GT Black Series — another record-setting car, albeit one that couldn’t be any more different from the approach the Ruf family takes when building automobiles. Parked across from the original record-setting 1987 CTR “Yellowbird”, which was out for a television shoot, the juxtaposition was serendipitous.
While the big German manufacturers are resource-rich and in a perpetual arms race for performance, Alois Ruf Jr. trades in ingenuity, emotion, and principle. When I sat in the CTR Anniversary prototype with Alois Ruf Jr. for a drive, I didn’t know how much horsepower it made. I didn’t know how quickly it went from 0-60. It didn’t matter. And it still doesn’t. And I still don’t know the answer. That’s the point.
When you walk into the RUF front office and workshop, it's like a time capsule. It reinforces that the superficial stuff doesn't matter superficiality is simply an excess. One doesn't need a big shiny glass headquarters — it doesn't make a car faster. At RUF, it’s about the cars and how they make you feel above all else. Ruf means building it your own way, and when you stick to your principles, the end result is a success because of how you feel. It’s what RUF has been doing for over 80 years. But, as Alois Sr. did with his son, Alois Jr. and his wife Estonia — who have run the business for nearly 50 years — are now grooming the next generation to take over, namely their daughter Aloisa.
A driver, mechanic, and photographer, we asked Aloisa to share her story visually through her photographic work, which evolved into a bigger collaboration with Highsnobiety. Throughout this, we spoke about her experiences growing up in the garage workshop, and her ideas for the future of RUF.
When we met at the workshop, you gave me the full family backstory that isn’t widely published. Can you elaborate on it a bit?
The company was founded as a service station called “Auto Ruf” in 1939 by my grandfather, this service station was accompanied by my grandmother’s gas station, one could say the dream team. This petrol station is outside the workshop to this day. My grandfather also operated an Autobus service, which facilitated people from the small village of Pfaffenhausen to travel to larger cities as Munich. One day, On one of these trips, a Porsche 356 was overtaking the bus and ended in the ditch. there was a car accident with a man in a Porsche 356. With no hesitation, My grandfather and father took him to the hospital - the driver and he was distraught that he might not be able to afford to repair the car, leading to my grandfather purchasing this restoration project my grandfather bought it right then and there and he and my father restored it
Then one day, my grandfather and my father drove to Munich in that car. I don't exactly remember the reason why they drove to Munich that day... a gentleman knocked on their window and said, "can I buy this car from you? I have the money in cash." On one of my grandfather’s and father’s Sunday trips to Munich, they drove the freshly restored 356. Not to long after entering the city a stranger knocked on the driver’s window and expressed his immediate interest in purchasing this Porsche. One must keep in mind that in the year 1963 Porsches were a rarity and it was a strike of luck to see one on the road. There was a natural trust between the gentlemen and the car was sold. This is the moment my grandfather realised that the Porsche community is a different form of car crazy and the decision to focus on fixing Porsches was made. And then my grandfather looked at my dad and said, "do you think he actually has this many marks in cash?" And then the guy was like, "Yeah, come pull over, pull over." And they sold the car right there. And for that time, it would have been very, very unusual for something like that to happen. But my grandfather then realized what the definition of 'car crazy' is. Because one must keep in mind that cars were just simply considered to be a machine to move you places, to get you places. Yes, he was passionate about cars you could get joy from them. They're beautiful. But he never looked at cars as making money... as being his future business...
Not a business or real passion?
He had the passion for them, but he never considered it a business. Simultaneously, his focus was set on developing a hydroelectric power plant. His mind was just in a different place. His focus was on something else. He said, "Oh my goodness, we fix the cars anyway. We love cars." That’s basically how it started.
Was your grandfather also a trained engineer?
Yes.
I don't think you told me that part about the power plant.
Oh yes. So that's actually my grandfather's life project and what he always wanted to do was to build his own hydroelectric power plant, and fixing cars was simply a passion besides that. He always said “big money comes from electricity. Our future lies in electricity.” He was working in Russia in electricity plants during the war. So that's what he was surrounded with. I think he brought back a lot of that knowledge, and that I think influenced him a lot.
And then came the light bulb moment of "Oh, I can make a business out of my passion." Was that their very first experience with Porsche?
One of...
Having grown up around all of this, it’s just your family and their family business. At what point did it click for you that “oh, my family name is iconic in this particular world”?
Through other people's reactions to recognizing my father in the most peculiar places such as in a ski lift, or at the airport I could tell that he had, had a great influence on so many people outside of our “known” realm.
There were three experiences. First, I think I was 12 years old. I was in a ski lift with my dad, and my dad took off his ski goggles to look at his map. He was fully masked, you could only see his eyes, and then the gentleman in the ski lift looked at him and said, "Are you Alois Ruf?" And my dad goes, "Yeah, why?" And I looked at him thinking ‘why?’ And then he's like, "Oh, I drive a 964. I'm such a big fan of your work." And my dad was like, "How did you even recognize me?" And I was like, "Oh, it was your nose." I was just poking fun at him. This is the first time I thought, "Okay, that's odd."
Then the second time, it was actually a beautiful, beautiful experience. I was flying from Monterey to LA after Car Week in Pebble Beach. After we landed, this young chap, he was 25, he approaches my father, we're all really tired. And he was like, "Oh my God, Mr. Ruf, I'm so honored to have been in the same plane with you. I would love it if we could take a picture." We were all like, "Oh my goodness, okay." So he's like, "Yeah, yeah. But I have to change shirts." The gentleman opens up a suitcase, takes out a RUF shirt, and I took a picture of them, and that's when I realized, oh, okay, this is...
Yeah.
We forget, it's not something that we think about a lot or I think about a lot necessarily. And it's really nice to see how people around the world follow my father's legacy and what he does and appreciate it.
What was the third experience? You said there were three.
Yeah. It's really funny. The third experience was in New York. And we were in the Metro… underground. You know how filled they can get. And right across the Metro, the same thing happened, a gentleman recognized my father and he just went, "Oh my God, are you Alois Ruf?" My dad was like, "Yeah." He was a bit scared. He thought somebody was going to steal from him or something. And he's like, "Yeah, why?" He's like, "I drive a 993." And he was yelling it through the train. It was just crazy to see.
Do you feel like recently more attention has been brought on RUF? With the current rush to the market for older Porsches and as a more mainstream audience is diving into the history of Porsche, which RUF is obviously a really big part of, has it had any effect of more people becoming aware of what RUF is?
No, I mean car aficionados and petrol heads have always been drawn to us by nature, yet what has been very noticeable is that there and they're petrol crazy.But what I have been realizing and noticing a lot is through social media, things spread like wildfire in the most fun and cool ways, putting us together with people, for instance, like you guys. But that's the thing that happens with passion, you fall quickly and you fall hard. And social media feeds this passion and allows you to connect to others that are just as car crazy as you, and then the rabbit hole begins! I feel that's what happens when you start to go down this rabbit hole. There's so much information now available.
I can only have the reference of my father's stories, but back in the day you one could look at the magazines and be like, "Okay, that's crazy." Yet there was still a greater distance between the reader and the car. Now, however, one person posts about a car and then two people repost it and then another car spotter finds it, a very fast snowball effect. And then they're like, "Who owns this car?” So there's this constant sharing of what we've been up to. And I feel that's also allowed the world to get a better insight of what we do as RUF Automobile in real time and who we are. And I feel that's been triggering a lot of people to be interested. And this has been a beautiful trigger for younger petrol heads to be interested and fascinated by RUF.
Seeing what you've seen and what you've grown up around, and now being an adult with your own passions beyond the business and the cars, is there anything you would do differently? What do you see as the future of building the brand beyond cars? We discussed people appreciating your father's legacy and your grandfather's legacy. What would you do when it becomes your legacy?
I am very excited about what the future holds. I'm very eager because I do have big shoes to fill, however, would like to accentuate that I'm not planning on trying to fill anything. I'm trying to go my own way, following my father’s core values and views, with my own twist. But, at the end of the day, I'm a product of my father and my mother and of all of the lessons they taught me, and I can't wait to bring those into the business. I still have so much to learn. I still have so many hundreds of cars to work on and to learn them inside out.
And I never really see myself... I don't like the word 'taking over.' My idealistic vision would be to work alongside my parents, which is what I already do to a certain extent. In the future, I see us sitting next to one another and creating cars together. To work hand in hand, instead of taking something over, because I feel for some reason, that always sounds very harsh and... it's something that has to grow within and I have to grow into the company in that aspect. And like I said, I have so much to learn.
Of those lessons you allude to, does one resonate as the most important you carry with you? What are the things that most inspire you about your father?
I have a couple of points, I look up to my father in every single way, actually, but to be more precise, his calmness and the way he can balance everything. What specifically stands out to me is that no matter how many plates are burning at the same time, he's very calm and very peaceful, and he's also an optimistic person. I think that's what I love and that’s a trait I’d like to take on. I would also consider myself to be quite optimistic as you can always, as my father likes to say: “accentuate the positive”.
There's a funny joke that comes from the movie “The World's Fastest Indian.” The guy protagonist gets a flat tire and someone says, "Oh my goodness, you have a flat tire you can't drive anymore!" And then the gentleman responds, "Oh, the tire's only flat at the bottom." And my dad likes to repeat that to me whenever I have troubles accentuating the positive. He always manages to say something witty like that to put a smile on everybody's face. Another thing I really appreciate about him is that he takes his time for everyone, and some people might criticize him as always running late, but that's because he takes his time for everyone. He doesn't rush with anything, and that's a legacy I’d like to carry on.
And your mother?
And about my mother is that she is very fierce and very strong and she doesn't take no for an answer. And I look up to her a lot. And she's also very, very bubbly and sometimes filterless. She says things exactly how she feels and that has always been very advantageous for us.
That just goes back to what I said about the refreshingness of the company being so authentic. It’s actually all just a function of the people. It's good that she's that way.
Exactly. Yeah. I look up to her warm and fun nature which comes hand in hand with her outright honesty and straightforwardness.
Nobody wants a bullshitter either though.
Exactly. She's very straight as an arrow. And I like that about her.
You're passionate about photography, a creative person, with a sense of aesthetic that you appreciate, which I feel drives a lot of what you do. How are you excited to integrate those outside passions into the business of RUF?
By simply allowing my passions of art, photography, and engineering to merge into the world of Ruf, by doing some really cool merging. One beautiful example for this is the collaboration we did with you guys at Higsnobiety. And the things that we've been touching on right now, what we're doing with you guys at Highsnobiety, go more in that, not necessarily commercial, but to do more fun projects like that, more creative projects that are a little bit outside of the creativity specific to building a car.
If you propose a new idea to your parents, how do they typically receive it? Are you very comfortable saying, "Hey, I want to do this and this is why I want to do it." I suppose you're not really going to propose anything that's going to be off. Because you know it, it's you.
We have a lot of mutual respect for each other. I respect their opinions, they respect my opinions, and that's very cool in that aspect. I remember when I was 6 years old, I redesigned the RUF logo in pink. I just did a pink drawing of the RUF logo, and I said, "We have to make the logo pink." And they actually sat down with me, "Oh, we'll take it into consideration." So, the bottom line is that never have any of my ideas been unwelcome.
Do you have any kind of opinion on how you see brands engaging with a female audience right now? Is that something you think about in terms of “Do I, Aloisa, as a woman have a responsibility to also ensure that other women know what we're doing?” Even just as a passion of yours, not necessarily from just a commercial perspective.
Having more women in any industry can only be advantageous. more women in any industry, I think that's just very empowering. So I think that's always something good. For the dynamics of things, I always believe that it happens organically. If somebody's naturally passionate about any aspect in the car world, let it be as a driver, mechanic or if its the design of the automobile that speaks to them, disregarding the pronouns they might carry, if the honest interest is there, one is welcomed. If you can share the passion, you share the passion. There's fun in everything. But at the same time, I do understand that it's very rare to have females in the automotive industry and yes, I do notice that all the time, especially when someone comments on it. The car world has been so beautifully welcoming.
In what sense? Do you have an example?
I went to drive a Rally and took my best friend with me. She appreciates cars, but she doesn't really have anything to do with cars. She was my co-driver. We started in the morning, we drove, and at lunch, somebody starts making a toast and says "To the only female driver!" I was like, I felt starstruck as I hadn’t even noticed. As the classic gender norms fell away and everyone was simply focusing on the cars. Generally, it wasn't even something I thought about. But the effect was that I got to have some wonderful conversations with some of the women that came. Many of them expressed to me their interest in driving and learning more about cars, to which I could only say: "just go for it." And I feel that the ease with which I can say that women can “simply go for it,” reflects how far the automotive world has beautifully progressed when it comes to the old-fashioned gender norms.
Some of my friends ask me, "Oh, can you teach me how to drive stick shift?" It's the little things that I think are really cool. We have to break out of this small-minded thinking that only men can be in a certain industry and only women can be in another certain industry. I really appreciate that there's more motion in that coming. I think so.
If you weren't who you are, as Aloisa Ruf… do you think there's a scenario where for someone like your friend, or for the wives of those men who were at that rally, that it could be harder for them to integrate into those experiences in those communities than it is for you?
I believe it has a lot to do with the person’s personality. You absolutely have to step out of your comfort zone to show up to some of these events, and really it's all a personality thing, because I know some really, really cool women that are also my age that are so car crazy and go to these events and stand up and people know them and are in these circles and I think that's so cool. It takes confidence, and I am very grateful that I was raised in an automotive environment where I was always introduced to new people and I learned how to stand up for myself. I am very happy to be able to say comfortably that the car world is very open to new faces and is very welcoming of people that are genuine and love cars. I think if somebody is a genuine car aficionado, and with any name, they can make great friends in the same field wherever they go that have great fun. Because at the end of the day that’s what we are all here for.
The RUF Automobile x Highsnobiety collection is available now at the Highsnobiety Shop.
