Sourcing RUF Front Lip? Anybody?
11-03-2023, 10:03 AM
#47
Rennlist Member
Me 2 NB
11-05-2023, 03:48 AM
#50
Rennlist Member
I'd scoop one up in a heartbeat!
03-05-2024, 06:00 PM
#53
Rennlist Member
Thread Starter
I email Ruf every few months and actually just did last week. They say.... "not for the foreseeable future"
I have been keeping an eye on Ebay and almost had one, until one of you psychopaths bid $3,000 for it at the last second.
I have been keeping an eye on Ebay and almost had one, until one of you psychopaths bid $3,000 for it at the last second.
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L39E (03-06-2024)
03-05-2024, 10:26 PM
#56
Rennlist Member
Thread Starter
I offered. I said that we would order 100 of them and they responded saying 'even if you buy 500, it is not possible at the moment'
Does anyone have a suggestion for a good looking well made, non-fiberglass/carbon solution?
Does anyone have a suggestion for a good looking well made, non-fiberglass/carbon solution?
03-06-2024, 11:14 AM
#57
Rennlist Member
None of the market that I know of. Best bet might be to reach out to Sleepers, Carbone, or another small independent innovator with an offer to organize the group buy if the produce one.
03-06-2024, 06:29 PM
#58
Rennlist Member
This is speculation, but I think what happens/happened at RUF is that when they decide that they want something for their cars, they spend big bucks to have it made right.
In this case that likely meant having the tooling/molds/whatever made to produce these lips in ABS. Then they likely order a run of them, and this is paid for by the cost of full builds/conversions.
My car's conversion was over 100k in 1997, which is almost 200k adjusted for inflation, and that didn't include the donor 964 Turbo! Seems like a lot of money, but there are so many one-off bits and I can only imagine the cost of producing those parts in very small numbers (e.g. the car features a RUF-specific cast aluminum intake manifold).
So if they don't use all the parts on their own cars, it looks like they sometimes offered the extras up for sale to the public, often inexpensively.
That seems to be what happened with the front lips, and often they didn't adjust prices for decades, so a part priced at $400 in 1999 was still $400 in 2019!
Now all the cars are worth more money and those of us who grew up with RUF posters or playing video games with RUF cars are excited about the brand, so demand quickly exceeded the New Old Stock supply.
So make more, right? Well I bet RUF wasn't making any money from selling off those lips, and probably couldn't make money doing a new run unless they charged huge money for them. The molds are probably long gone, everything would have to be re-done from scratch at 2024 pricing. Would 100 people line up to spend thousands of dollars for a lip, even if it was really nice? I doubt it. I think the only hope for a new production run is that RUF decides to make more because so many people order RCT Evos and want to keep 964 bumpers. That said, if you're spending RCT Evo money the new full carbon bumpers are so nice I struggle to see why anyone wouldn't opt for those instead!
In this case that likely meant having the tooling/molds/whatever made to produce these lips in ABS. Then they likely order a run of them, and this is paid for by the cost of full builds/conversions.
My car's conversion was over 100k in 1997, which is almost 200k adjusted for inflation, and that didn't include the donor 964 Turbo! Seems like a lot of money, but there are so many one-off bits and I can only imagine the cost of producing those parts in very small numbers (e.g. the car features a RUF-specific cast aluminum intake manifold).
So if they don't use all the parts on their own cars, it looks like they sometimes offered the extras up for sale to the public, often inexpensively.
That seems to be what happened with the front lips, and often they didn't adjust prices for decades, so a part priced at $400 in 1999 was still $400 in 2019!
Now all the cars are worth more money and those of us who grew up with RUF posters or playing video games with RUF cars are excited about the brand, so demand quickly exceeded the New Old Stock supply.
So make more, right? Well I bet RUF wasn't making any money from selling off those lips, and probably couldn't make money doing a new run unless they charged huge money for them. The molds are probably long gone, everything would have to be re-done from scratch at 2024 pricing. Would 100 people line up to spend thousands of dollars for a lip, even if it was really nice? I doubt it. I think the only hope for a new production run is that RUF decides to make more because so many people order RCT Evos and want to keep 964 bumpers. That said, if you're spending RCT Evo money the new full carbon bumpers are so nice I struggle to see why anyone wouldn't opt for those instead!
