RugerSociety.com

A topic we don't talk about too much here is W.B.R.'s cars, I recently picked up this 1970 Automobile flyer and Shareholders Report. What I found interesting is they came with an envelope addressed to "William B. Ruger Jr., RUGER CARS".
Bennett

John D. may want to chime in, but I believe Bill, Jr. was in charge of that operation.

Very nice & in excellent condition to boot.
Terry

Hadn't seen the WBR, Jr. envelope before. Nice snag!
Many of those info kits on the car also came with a nice yellow folder that held everything, including Ruger reprints of Ruger Tourer magazine articles and press kit photos.
The really rare piece would be an original order form.
Chet15

Hello guys,

I have always been fascinated by the Ruger cars and have gathered up a few paper items. My best item is the press kit mentioned by Chad. I don't know how to post pictures here, so I will e-mail a photo to Donnie and he can post it. Included in the kit was a catalogue, order form, magazine reprints and renderings of optional body styles.

This was Billy Jr's project. While at the factory one time I looked at 8X10 photos taken when he had the car on tour in England and Europe (at car shows). Some photos were of him and several good looking babes posing around it on the streets of London.

I was told that one reason the project got suspended was the return on investment per square feet of manufacturing space was much less than if the floorspace was being used to make guns. Of course there were a lot of government regulations that made a car like these nearly impractical to build and market and be profitable.

After Mr. Ruger passed away, Billy Jr. bought both cars from the Ruger estate and kept them in his collection. After he died one of the cars sold at auction a couple years ago and is now in a private collection, I don't know what became of the other one.

John

John just sent these pics to go with his post:

Great info ! I was not aware that Bill Jr directed the Tourer's direction for the company.
Thanks for sharing the provenance.
Terry

Heard another reason for dropping the Ruger Tourer... with all the government regulations coming around at the time with smog control etc., and crash testing... WBR (or WBR, Jr.) were told they needed to put at least one of the cars through the crash test criteria. The boys would have none of it, so the project was dropped.
I think D.F. also has a Ruger Tourer press kit in a gray (hand typed?) folder that predates the yellow kits.
There are really quite a lot of different items that were put in those kits, some kits have this or that and other kits are found with different items.
Chet15

John and Donnie, Thank you very much for sharing these items of Ruger Car literature. Like most of us long time collectors, these cars were just pictures and I had little knowledge about them. I did not even know that 2 were built! Great press kit John, I enjoy seeing such evidence about the cars. Lee E

Now some of you know what to try to buy if you hit the Mega Lottery! The amount of Ruger information out there and the great people that share it are mind boggling. Thanks for showing us and making this the best Ruger group in the world!!