Ultima GTR

The Ultima GTR has become a by-word on the British performance motoring scene. It has everything going for it - world records to its name, power, speed, reliability and mean, purposeful looks. Designed as the successor to the very successful Ultima Sport, the GTR was a highly modified evolution built to move the Hinckley, Leicestershire concern into the 21st Century.

New Model, New Name
The GTR was launched in 1999, after a full 14-month development period, in which the company beavered over a new design, and new engineering practices for their new model. Ted Marlow decided that, for the new car, the Sport tag was too tame, and as such the GTR name was coined. Although the Sport looked stunning when unveiled in the early-1990s, it was beginning to look a bit dated by the dawn of the new Century. Marlow and his team used a Sports bodyshell as a base, and set about sharpening the curves and reshaping areas such as the doors and centre section. The moulds were taken from a full-scale clay buck.

Under the newly-restyled skin, the 5.7 litre Chevrolet V8 was retained, and from launch American Speed Enterprises were the recommended engine suppliers. The car was to be supplied in 'turnkey' form, which meant that the car was fully built but not yet road registered, or kit form, for the customer to built themselves. This gave the customer the option to choose another powerplant for the car - a practice which Ultima don't condone. The power was delivered to the road via a Porsche G50 five-speed manual gearbox, or a Getrag manual system - two of the toughest gearboxes to cope with the high performance - as per Ultima tradition.

The GTR featured a number of changes over the outgoing Sport, which included the addition of an FIA approved rollcage, a larger radiator, a change in damper length, revised wishbones, a new wiring loom, severe modification to the fuel system and redesigned gearbox mountings, to name but a few. Inside, a revised air conditioning unit was fitted where specified, along with a radio and a 6-CD changer, bringing the cabin up to almost luxurious standard, banishing the stripped-out racer look of the earlier models. All the changes were complimented by the addition of Ultima's first alloy wheel design, penned entirely in-house. The new wheels were created specifically for the car, and removed any compromises Ultima had to make with mass-produced wheels.

In 2000, Ultima heralded a new method in body production, which is used only by themselves. The Ultima bodies are produced in glass-reinforced plastic (GRP), which is polished to give a smooth finish. Since the GRP is produced with the body colour in it, an Ultima GTR or Can-Am never requires painting. All this is topped off with a clear coat of gel. Also in 2000, Ultima conducted another experiment into the use of carbon fibre as a bodywork material - just as it had done with the Sport in the mid-nineties - and although this experiment produced a desireable bodyshell, it was too expensive for such little gain, and was barely lighter than the standard gel-coat GRP body.

In 2004, Ultima released the GTR640, featuring a 640BHP engine. This was surpassed in 2006 with the GTR720, powered by a 720BHP Chevrolet V8.

The Ultima GTR has proved a roaring success for the company, and by 2003 Ultima had produced over 400 cars in total.

The Records
The GTR has proven itself as a very quick car, and Ultima has used the demonstrators to beat a number of speed records. They are as follows:

2006 - GTR640 beats 0-100-0 mph record, recording a time of 10.3 seconds. 2006 - MIRA tests reveal that a GTR640 accelerates from 0-60 mph in 2.7 secs, 0-100 in 5.5 secs and 0-150 in 11.8 secs. Other figures include; 30-70 mph in only 2.0 secs and a top speed of 231 mph. 2006 - GTR beats its own 0-100-0 mph record, with a run of 9.8 seconds. The Ferrari Enzo does it in 10.9 secs, the Porsche Carrera GT in 11.6 secs. 2006 - GTR720 beats, again, its 0-100-0 mph record, doing it in 9.4 seconds. 2006 - GTR720 records a 9.9 second quarter mile.