Contrary to what Ferrari, McLaren and Porsche would have you believe, there's no big scientific secret to building a car with 200mph potential. You don't need a hundred grand's worth of Formula 1 V10, you don't need the last word in composite carbon fibre monocoques and you don't need any gold plated components. All you need is a thumping great engine with enough power to overcome the high speed drag and Robert's your father's brother! If your ambitions require something faster, you'd best have a word with Andy Green whilst looking for property in Black Rock, Nevada.
Of course, if you want the thing to ride, handle, go round corners, hold the road and rather more important, stay on it, the engineering recipe becomes more complex. But though such a project makes demands of many technical skills, it's still nothing requiring banks of computers and an army of white coated boffins to sort out. If you want proof, take a trip to Hinckley where you will find the Mecca of kit form hi tech lurking behind the out of town Safeway. Just turn left at the trolley park for something that does the job rather better than the supermarket's rebellious shopping receptacle for here, a purpose built unit on a brand new industrial estate is the home of Ultima Sports.
The name of Ultima is one requiring no introduction being familiar throughout the kit car world and way beyond as the epitome of race and power engineering. It is also synonymous with the name of its designer, Lee Noble, and though Ted Marlow, the longstanding owner of the project, wouldn't take anything away from Lee, he rather forcefully makes the point that since he acquired the project in 1991 constant development has changed every single component to the stage where nothing of the original save Clive Smart's eternally attractive body styling remains. This is actually a totally natural and familiar pattern of evolution but the point Ted is keen to make is that today's Ultima owes only its inspiration to the designer whilst he feels it's high time for the accolades attracted by the car's continued success to reflect upon his company and the design, manufacturing and technical expertise within it.
So what is an Ultima?
The Ultima is the complete antithesis of the Ford Mondeo. Whereas Ford's world car is designed as far as possible, to provide the perfect answer to every conceivable motoring requirement, the Ultima is specifically designed to look drop dead gorgeous, to go like an F16 on reheat, to handle like your favourite dancing partner and to hang on like the last roof still attached to a Selsey bungalow!
In acheiving its design aims the Ultima experience moves to the highest of performance planes where its figures stack up more than favourably against those boasted by the universally acknowledged stars. These include Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Bugatti, Porsche, Dodge and a few others normally restricted to the shopping lists of millionaires, football stars who can't drive and lottery winners which brings us to the most outstanding aspect of the whole deal; you don't have to be any of these to own one. Of course, it's not cheap but with supercars generally in the £100,000 plus bracket and many a great deal more, the irresistable attraction of the Ultima is that it's a supercar you can build in the garage at home for a sum generally around the £20,000 mark although some cost more - much more. Nevertheless, keeping your feet on the ground will see one complete for a sum equating to that of a mid range saloon so if you haven't got it, borrow it!
You can never accuse Ultimas of being out of reach.
So how does a kit car muck like quite a few others come to embody performance aspired to by many and achieved by so very few? The answer lies quite simply in design, development and quality.
The first thing to stress about the Ultima is the manner in which it differs from the kit car norm. Where a Quantum, NG or GTM is designed specifically to utilise the unmodified components of a chosen donor, the Ultima employs components specifically designed and manufactured to suit the application rather than making do or modifying what's available. It's a policy that has arrived at a situation in which an Ultima is an Ultima and not a rebodied Ford Fiesta, MGB or Rover Metro. That's not to say anything against the chosen examples, more to underline that compromise is not in the Ultima dictionary.
The chassis is a steel tube spaceframe that has been steadily developed following road and track experience as well as the need to handle ever larger power outputs but it doesn't rely on the traditional kit car cureall of steel overkill. Despite the ability to handle 600 bhp plus it retains 16 square gauge and round section steel tube and when complete with all bracketry and epoxy coating still only records 60 kgs on the workshop scales. That's impressively light and a great aid to extracting maximum performance from whatever engine is fitted.
When it comes to performance, the Ultima shines. Back in 1993 Ted Marlow accepted an invitation from Autocar and Motor to participate in a 0 - 100 mph - 0 competition and an Ultima fitted with a 450 bhp 302 cu in V8 driving BFG road tyres via a four speed Porsche transaxle set the incredible time of 14 seconds dead. That's faster that a Ferarri F40 and only 3/10ths of a second slower than Stig Blomqvist in an ex works Group B Ford RS200. Not only that but a subsequent effort in another car bettered the time by 4 seconds.
However, the Ultima is not simply about going and stopping and the only meaningful performance statistics are in lap times which cover the whole performance spectrum of acceleration, braking, cornering, stability and grip. To that end a time of 57 seconds around Castle Combe and 47 round Mallory Park says it all.
Indeed, the circuit is the arena in which most Ultima development takes place for both road and track. The most familiar Ultima racer is Bob Light who, in addition to outstanding success, has had several high speed offs in his car all of which have been followed by painstaking factory scrutiny to study the manner of any structural deformation with a view to improving chassis and suspension design. In this way uprights, wishbones, anti roll bars, springs, dampers, component location, chassis tube positioning have all been gradually developed to arrive at the current specification but it's a constant process that is never complete.
Early cars employed tubular wishbones clamping a Ford upright via Ford ball joints with steering by a Ford rack and pinion. Today's car uses cast aluminium uprights, a completely new wishbone design and a special Ultima aluminium steering rack. Brakes used to be Ford units but they were never intended to arrest the sort of power now common to Ultimas so the company has developed a range of five brake options from Ford Granada two pot vented discs to race quality six pot calipers clamping bigger vented disc units. In addition to sourced components, the company has developed a range of special parts all of which contribute to the Ultima's ability to give of its best no matter what the specification or the intended application. You can have right or left hand drive, gear change to the right, left or centre, a conventional arrangement of analogue instruments or a full LCD digital data logging system. Whether it's air jacks or a picnic table, all can be provided.
As the customer, it's all up to you but though the choices seem as bewildering as understanding the air time agreement on your mobile phone, Ultima will answer all your questions and guide you to a specification chiefly dictated by the intended application, i.e. road or race and how serious.
This aspect of things brings us to the engine. By far the most popular choice for Ultima propulsion is the Chevy 350 (5.7 litres). Delightfully low tech units with a mere two valves per cylinder, single camshaft and push rods, the stock HO pumps out 355 bhp with simple bolt on mods able to boost it well over 400 with substantial increases in torque which stands at 405 ft lbs in standard tune. Wonderful stuff but you need a transaxle able to take the stick. Most such mid engined installations have mated Renault's available 30 transaxle to the Chevy V8 and though they seem up to the power, torque is another matter with the figures generated by a pumped up unit easily outstripping the safety margin on a box designed for Renault's 150 bhp V6. Ultima retain the Renault unit for matching to the Rover V8 but for the Chevy they opt for the Porsche 911 box available as a four, five or six speeder. Six cogs sounds awfully attractive for its apparent exclusivity but Ultima strongly recommend the five as the former puts third, fourth and fifth closer together while keeping sixth about the same and such ratios just do not suit the torque spread of the Chevy motor, especially a power enhanced one. Of course whatever Porsche box you want, they aren't exactly lying about in breakers' yards but Ultima can supply them and find them relatively easy to come by. Actually, building an Ultima is a task that doesn't take you anywhere near a breaker's yard.
You can use smaller engines and the company has recently completed a car for an Australian customer to be displayed at the Melbourne Motor Show. This one has the latest Ford 302 Cobra V8 driving a Porsche five speed box. They are also putting together a car for a German customer who is sending over a Jaguar 4 litre supercharged V8 for his car. In respect of emissions, Ultima can supply fully catalysed exhaust systems to meet the requirements of most world markets.
Physically, there is no denying that Clive Smart's original sculpture created a timeless form that continues to be visually distinctive in a world which supercar shapes are increasingly conformist but again, it hasn't been a case of merely laminating a partiularly pleasing shape.
Following Ted Marlow's acquisition of the project, it became clear that increased power would have increased aerodynamic effect. Most people have experienced the effects of aerodynamics on road cars at everyday speeds. Multiply the figures by several fold and it's clear there is a major force to be reckoned with. For that reason the Ultima spent a day in front of the WW2 Liberator engine driven propellers of MIRA's wind tunnel to hone the body shape prior to cars being sold. At the time of the Autocar and Motor 0 - 100 - 0 test, the old style rear wing was generating 400 lbs of downforce at 100 mph and subsequent development has seen aerodynamic effect keeping pace with performance.
And what of the Spyder? This model was originally intended as the budget baby that would use lesser spec components and derive power from the Rover V8. Things didn't work out like that and many Spyders have been built to the same ultimate standards as the majority of Sports models. That said, Ted Marlow is keen not to frighten prospective customers with erroneous visions of vast bills in the wake of a decision to build an Ultima. Thus the next demonstrator shortly to commence construction will be a budget Spyder with no loss of quality but using a Rover V8 to arrive at an all up on the road cost of around £19000. With a 230 bhp Rover 3.5 with a Holley carburettor and uprated camshaft, the car will weigh in at 850 kgs to deliver a power to weight ratio of 271 bhp per ton which, even if you uprate later, is more than enough to kick off with.
Should you choose to take matters further you will visit the company's impressive factory where, besides kits, you will see several cars at varying stages of construction. This is always an interesting aspect of the cars for prospective customers to see while it's also a good exercise for the manufacturer as the last thing he wants is to waste time with parts that do not fit perfectly so the kit aspects of the care are doubly important for the manufacturer to get right and Ultima certainly have.
Walk in and you are in the showroom which on the day of my visit housed the company's familiar red Spyder demonstrator and a customer's 650 bhp Le Mans spec Sports geared for 230 mph! Both are immaculately presented while the area is festooned with photographs of Ultimas on road and track. Behind the screens lies a highly efficient workshop layout with bays for four cars under construction, a development area further back, prototype and metalwork section to the right of that and stores housed on a mezzanine floor above the office. There is no doubt that visitors to Ultima's factory will get the deepest insight into what makes an Ultima while the words of wisdom born of Ted's experience will point potential buyers towards a sensible specification that meets their requirements and that will deliver the goods.
The Ultima is one of the industry's shining success stories and seems destined to continue in the same vein both in the UK and abroad. Ultimas currently occupy several far flung corners of the globe including America, Australia, South Africa, Japan and Dubai as well as many European countries. Export sales as well as the imminent advent of SVA have also contributed to Ultima's development workload but Ted is fully confident of SVA compliance as well as continued demand for the car. Indeed, the easiest aspect of the whole job is that he doesn't have to sell it as it sells itself.
As ever, it all comes down to price. Ultima's price list prices every component seperately in the order in which they are required for the build starting with the chassis pack at £2730 + VAT. I'll leave you to obtain the company's excellent brochure and do the sums but one thing Ted is keen to point out is that many people engaged in this exercise end up frightening themselves by going for every single option and usually the most expensive. As Ted says, it's usually far from necessary so you'd better to leave it until you've visited the factory and benefitted from the advice, guidance and total confidence of Ted or Steve Smith but you won't be alone. The company attends a dozen shows a year, demonstrate the cars on circuits all over Europe, distrivute over 10,000 hand out sheets and 2000 full colour brochures so naturally they provoke reaction.
For our part, we greatly look forward to a return match in the Spring when we can have a go at the new Spyder demonstrator but if you're impatient, you can always give them a ring. One such chap saw a snippet on Ultimas whilst flying intercontinental and promptly rang Ted on his mobile from 30,000 ft! He ordered one straight off and like every Ultima customer now and in the future, he's more than happy.
