Few venues are more appropriate for wild supercar debuts than the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The revelry supporting the annual romp up the hill at Goodwood Estate in West Sussex begins today, and among the big introductions is RUF Automobile’s newest creation, the B8.

But the B8 isn’t the German manufacturer’s latest car; it’s an engine. More specifically, the B8, short for Boxer 8, is an all-new, 4.8-liter twin-turbocharged eight-cylinder boxer engine making 1000 horsepower and 738 pound-feet of torque. 

To show off this marvel of engineering, RUF packaged the development motor, known internally as the Erprober (Tester), in one of its CTR3 supercars, which has been lengthened by nearly four inches to accommodate the new powerplant in place of its traditional twin-turbo flat-six. 

“The B8 is not yet a production model but serves as a dedicated testbed for technologies that will shape a future RUF model,” the company said in a press release. “Each new RUF begins life long before the world sees it, with thousands of kilometers of rigorous testing to ensure its extreme performance is matched with equal parts durability and drivability.”

At Goodwood, the B8-powered CTR3 will take part in the Supercar Run twice per day, from Friday through Sunday, with American racer Tanner Foust at the wheel. The car will also be parked in the Supercar Paddock throughout the weekend, with the engine on display.

The car’s distinctive livery was designed by Aloisa Ruf, daughter of current head Alois, and utilizes the Blossom Yellow made famous on the company’s CTR Yellow Bird. “I wanted the graphics to tell the story of the car before anyone even heard the engine,” she said. “Every line represents movement, and the flowing form of the number eight became a natural symbol, not only for the new boxer eight-cylinder, but for the endless pursuit of improvement and refinement that has always been part of our family’s philosophy.” 

RUF says that it “prefers to show its engineering prowess rather than tell, and with each run up the hill, [the company] looks forward to letting the world hear the unique sound of its twin-turbo boxer-eight for the first time.”

All boxer engines are flat engines, but not all flat engines are boxers. The difference lies in the way their opposing pistons connect to the crankshaft. In short, flat engines, like the flat-12 of a Ferrari Testarossa, are 180-degree V-8s, with each pair of opposing pistons sharing a crankpin. As one piston moves in, its opposite piston moves out. In boxer engines, the pistons each have their own crankpins and their movements mirror each other.

Porsche and Subaru have long championed the boxer engine, both in four- and six-cylinder configurations. Boxer-eights, however, aren’t exactly prevalent in the world of production cars, though they have powered some memorable race machinery, notably from Porsche. In 1962, the company installed its 1.5-liter Type 753 boxer-eight in its first Formula 1 car, the 804. In the hands of Dan Gurney, the 804 gave Porsche its first and only F1 victory, at the 1962 French Grand Prix. The 2.0-liter Type 771 powered a few 904s, as well as the 906, 910, and 907 sports racers. Perhaps most famous was the 908 sports prototype that debuted at Le Mans in 1968. It utilized a 3.0-liter boxer-eight making around 350 hp. Two of those engines also found their way into 914 street cars, which… whoa. 

As automotive engineers continue to refine more established engine configurations (the inline-fours and sixes, as well as the V-6s, V-8s, and V-12s of the world), not to mention the whirring electric motors of our inevitable future, this news from RUF is indeed a breath of fresh air. 

“There are moments in a company’s history that define the future,” said Alois Ruf. “For RUF, the Boxer 8 is one of those moments. A boxer-eight has never been part of our story, or anyone else’s in this form, so we decided to write a new chapter in automotive history. We look forward to letting the engine speak for itself at Goodwood.”

The Goodwood Festival of Speed runs through July 12, and much of the event will be livestreamed here.

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