The last time I drove an Ultima Spyder was at my own wedding in August of last year when I borrowed the company's old Rover powered demonstrator. I left the reception with my new wife in spectacular fashion, with a 200 yard blast up to a car park round the corner where we jumped into a diesel-powered Clio for the drive down to the south of France! The Ultima was a dream start to our married life while the Clio brought us back to earth with a hard, and rather noisy, bump.

Up to now most customers have been fitting Chevrolet 350ci V8s into their Spyders and Sports but the only Chevy powered cars we had come into contact with were two customer cars straight out of the box and needing a little fine-tuning. Neither engine was showing its true promise and, as a result, it was a slightly subdued return journey to the Which Kit? office. But now things would be different. I'd returned to Ultima's factory to drive the company's well run-in Chevy poweres Spyder demo car. It was the car that impressed (scared) the hell out of old Filpot towards the end of last year when Ultima MD, Ted Marlow, took him for a high speed blast around the Castle Combe racing circuit.

Bedecked with the company's now trademark monster rear wing, the Spyder certainly holds your attention. The demo car is beautifully finished, with a metallic Peugeot red. Ultima's specially designed polished aluminium wheels (17" rears and 16" fronts) have always looked the bizz while the monster 315x35 rear tyres always take your breath away. Inside the cockpit the dash and seats are all trimmed in a dark grey alcantara (fake suede) which seems to be almost de rigeur these days in any supercar not finished in exposed kevlar. Not that I'm complaining, because alcantara looks spot-on and can be found in all manner of different colours if you're looking to trim your own kit car project. The seats in the Spyder are now to Ultima's own design and can be supplied in three different width specifications, depending on your needs(!).

Out back, under that huge rear body section, lies the heart and soul of this latest supercar frightener. In fact, with a rather bland black air-filter sat atop the big V8, the impression is almost a muted one, although the huge size of everything and the curving gaggle of stainless exhaust manifolds won't be missed by many. Underneath all this bravado is actually a standard Chevy 350ci HOZZ4 V8 engine. HO has traditionally stood for High Output and the ZZ4 simply means this is the latest spec Chevy 350 rather than any early effort. With the standard Holley 750cfm double pumper carb we're talking 355bhp and a whopping 405ftlbs of torque. Having shopped around for new engines, Ultima now goes to Real Steel for all its units and, thus far, has been consistently pleased with the results. As with all American powered Ultimas, the demo car is fitted with an inverted Porsche 5-speed transaxle.

Before heading out in the Spyder, Ted Marlow takes me for a spin in a green Sports that has just been returned to the company for its first MoT. The car's done around 16,000 miles in those first three years and Ted's extremely pleased with the way everything has stood up. It's powered by another Chevy HO lump and when the road permits, Ted gives it some welly for a serious display of mind-boggling performance. In almost any gear and at any speed, the huge torque produces neck-snapping response while the gargantuan wheels and tyres ensure it all stays largely where it should. As I now re-run the experience in my mind, I must apologise to the elderly couple in their equally sedate Metro whom we came up behind decelerating hard from a speed I shudder to remember, let alone mention. To their credit, the brake lights didn't glimmer once, and we were past and gone within seconds. Come to think about it, p[erhaps they didn't notice us at all!

As if I needed telling, Ted recounts a recent visit by Performance Car who, whilst testing another customer's Sports, recorded a 0-60mph time of just 3.5 seconds. This was with yet another standard Chevy engine and in the slightly heavier Sports when compared to the lighter Ultima Spyder demo car I was about to drive. Hmm, it should go quite well then...

Back at base it's time to stop the stories and get on with the real thing. The Spyder's Countach-style doors are always a delight as well as being practical (the car's so wide anyway that if you had conventional doors you'd hardly ever be able to open them properly without hitting something). The wide sill is the next obstacle to overcome, combined with finding somewhere in the interior to place your foot as you get in. It's all an acquired art that is soon mastered before you slide down into the company's new seats. They certainly look impressive and the demo car features the narrowest option which, whilst not being painful, are certainly supportive. Combined with wretched 4-point racing harnesses, the Ultima would not make the ideal getaway car, so you'd better make sure you've got everything before you get strapped in.

The driving position itself is impressive, without the hugely offset pedals that beset most mid-engined creations. That's largely thanks to the central driving position, with the gearshift on the right hand side. Down under the dash, the floor-mounted pedals can be adjusted fore and aft at the build stage, while the footpads themselves can also be further adjusted once the car is built. Combined with seat runners, it means fewer drivers shouldn't be able to get comfortable. Ultima's standard steering wheel feels great and is mounted on one of those natty removable bosses for added security when the car is parked up.

Most Ultimas these days are dominated by the huge rear wing, but there are two other versions should you want them, one more subtle and one pure racer.

I don't think I've ever said this before, but if a gearlever can actually be positioned too close to the steering wheel, then the Ultima comes close. In first gear the gear shift is almost touching the steering wheel whilst from here on it is always less than a palm width away. Just with getting in, it's something you quickly adjust to and, indeed, miss when you return to more mundane forms of transport (like Ferraris, Lamborghinis and, no doubt, elderly Metros!). Instruments are all immediately familiar but if there is one thing I miss, it's a centrally mounted rear view mirror. The two side mounted mirrors do a reasonable job, but you can't see them at a glance in the same way your eye darts to a centrally mounted one.

Twist the key and press the ignition button and you're met with that glorious soundtrack that only a serious V8 can provide. Ultima's own exhaust system is tuned to perfection and the Chevy soon settles down into its big woofly tick-over. Indeed, I probably get a bit blase about the fantastic music delivered from terrific V8 installations such as this. Ted's main man at the factory, Steve, blasts off away from us later in the day after we do the action shots, and as he works his way through the gears the huge roar stays with us long after he's out of sight. The bureaucrats certainly know how to spoil our fun when they legislate against exhaust decibel limits. Westfield's new Type Approved SEiGHT is a case in point (castrated of one of its most endearing features) and it can only be a matter of time before we all will surely come under the rule books's wording...

Still, whilst the sun shines, and all that, we might as well make the most of Ultima's soundtrack. The Spyder's right hand gearshift has been fine-tuned over the years since the car was first launched in 1993 and the standard system now has the linkage on the inside of the side sill, exposed to the interior. It gives a more direct route back to the input shaft in the Porsche 'box and, if nothing else, looks very trick when you look into the cockpit. Interestingly, one of the points the Spyder was pulled up on in a recent SVA Pilot Scheme test was the radius of the foremost rose-joint just below the gear stick. The edges are just too sharp and future cars will have to have the rose-joint crefully modified to meet the strict new requirements. Apart from that, the Spyder actually came through the pilot scheme remarkably unscathed, with only minor interior edges requiring greater radiuses to meet internat projection requirements.

Alcantara dash and seats certainly look the part. The latter are now made in house in a variety of widths. Storage bins in the side sills are about all the luggage space you'll get.

Moving away, the gear linkage certainly feels quite light and smooth. It's probably not quite up to front engined production car changes, and the fact that you are using your right hand probably doesn't help matters, but it's still impressive and becomes quite natural after a short time.

The ride of the Spyder has always been impressive and even on the more unsettling back roads the car maintains a good poise and protects its occupants in a most unracelike manner. To combine this with great stability at speed is quite a knack, and one that the Spyder has completely sorted. The handling also seems really well balanced on this car. Combined with the huge roadholding potential of those massive tyres, the Ultima treads a delicate path between endless grip and driver feedback through the bends.

Much of that is aided by the company's specially made steering rack. With a miniscule 1.9 turns lock-to-lock the downside is monstrously heavy steering at parking speeds but you don't have to be travelling much more than walking pace before everything lightens up. In most normal driving circumstances the steering remains remarkably ordinary, there's no twitchiness often associated with quick racks and the driver can settle back and relax. But it's as you hit the bends with a vengeance that the steering really comes into its own. Response is instantaneous and controlled. The Spyder digs in while feeding vital information back to the driver regarding limits of adhesion and the precision with which the car can be guided.

Whilst clutch and accelerator are all light and easy, the demo car's brake pedal is rock solid. Ted's already warned me about it, having set the car up just how he likes it rather than for customers and kit car hacks looking for a day out in the sun. It requires a serious hoofing to get the pedal to move, let alone bring the Spyder to a halt. Ted's at pains to point out that customers can specify what sort of pedal feel they prefer and he'll tailor the master cylinders to match this. The demo car is currently running 12" vented discs all round with a front/rear bias adjustment. It's more than enough to bring the Spyder down from three figure speeds in a flash but, just like most parts of the car, you can tailor it to your own requirements. A customer's Sports is currently being assembled in the works with the biggest vented discs I have ever clapped eyes on. At 14" in diameter and about an inch wide, they use monster AP Racing aluminium 4-pot calipers and look more designed to stop a ten-ton Russian tank, not the 990kg Sports.

Above: Standard Chevy 350 HO does the business in spectacular fashion. The Spyder is massively fast yet utterly docile around town.

But what about the engine? One of the beauties of using a hulking great V8 engine, is the docile nature with which they seem happy to pootle around town without a word of complaint. Steering and brakes aside, your granny could pilot the Spyder down to Tescos without a second thought regarding the 355bhp and 405ftlbs of torque slumbering quietly behind her. Actually, if the truth be known, this particular engine bacame a little chocked up if you pottered around for too long, but a quick bit of brutality with the right foot soon had the Spyder breathing cleanly again.

But it's the brutality you really want to hear about, isn't it? Unleash the prehistoric force of the Chevy in any gear and you are soon travelling at speeds a whole level or five above any other car on the road. Long straights become mere leg-stretchers before the next bend and each surge of power concentrates your mind as you snatch one gear after another. Such is the noise, wind and sheer violence of the action that adrenaline seems to be the only thing pumping through your veins. It's only when you come across other cars that the full might and power of the Spyder becomes plainly evident. Dear Metro driving grandma showed one side of Ultima driving - the speed at which you can come up on other road users without necessarily realising just how fast you were actually travelling. The next aspect of Spyder piloting comes when you want to overtake afformentioned grandma - the slightest overtaking opportunity can be exploited in comparative safety.

Of course, Ted Marlow knows the Ultima Spyder and Sports best, and he can take corners and straights at mind-numbing speeds. Over the years I've got pretty accustomed to being driven fast by experienced drivers but there are times when even I find myself closing my eyes as we approach yet another corner at seemingly insane speeds. The laws of physics must surely prove the ultima wrong, you can't pull these sort of stunts off - but of course we do, time and time again. For once I'm glad of the lung crushingly tight harnesses and racing seats - they're almost certainly holding in what would otherwise have left me ten corners earlier!

Above: Driving position is excellent thanks to centrally mounted seats. Note how close the gear shift is to the steering wheel. The change itself is very good.

Getting out of the Spyder back at the factory, I'm feeling completely blitzed from the constant wind noise, engine noise, performance and general adrenaline rush. The Spyder is always an experience but, as with all factory visits, it's time to talk turkey and see what the real cost of Ultima ownership is likely to be. It's all very well talking kit prices with manufacturers but I think what most readers want to know is how much will it be to build something like the demonstrator? Ted Marlow's straight answer is something approaching £ 25,000. The test car is built to a very high standard, using all new components, but it gives you an indication as to the ball-park figure you should be aiming for...

The company price list will help you budget more carefully still. The Spyder is broken up into a number of different stages up to and including everything you might require to complete a car. Setting you off in the right direction is the basic chassis package (Stage 1) at £ 2730 + VAT and Ted reckons a budget Rover V8 powered Spyder might hit the road for under £ 15,000 if you're careful. As ever, we'd steer people on a slightly cautious path and suggest something between £ 15,000 and £ 25,000 is where you should aim for as a starting point.

When you take into consideration that a Caterham 21, MGF, Westfield SEiGHT etc will all cost you £ 20,000+ depending on specification, the £ 25,000 build price of the Ultima Spyder becomes rather more palatable. Where else can you buy a 355bhp, 405ftlbs V8 throbbing roadster with this kind of road prescence and performance for similar money? If anywhere, it's going to be in the kit car market. Just when will the general public come around to the fact that if they want truly individual motoring at a price they can afford, there's only one place to look?

Transcribed with kind permission from Which Kit? magazine.