Saturday, March 24, 2012

The Ultima(te) Story

Discovered from Forza Motorsport 4's March Pirelli Pack is a car I am not utterly familiar of. This car is known as the Ultima GTR, the quickest accelerating and decelerating supercar of all time and multiple world speed record holder.

The Ultima GTR vs. the Noble Works!
Unless I was on the MPH05 show in the NEC, Birmingham, or in Earl's Court in London, I wouldn't have the chance to encounter one. Oh, Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond and Fifth Gear's Tiff Needell were on that MPH05 show a couple of years ago and Clarkson wants to prove just how world proven the Ultima GTR is by challenging Tiff Needell to figure out the Ultima GTR's indoor speed record. Ultima Sports Ltd. Director, Richard Marlow, was impressed to see the presenters from Top Gear and Fifth Gear getting to know more about the Ultima GTR in front of a hundred thousand visitors.


Although it is a supercar, the Ultima GTR is a Do-It-Yourself car. By the time you ordered one as a "kit car" you can build it yourself and for an advantage, it is less expensive than the factory-assembled Ultima GTR. This is somewhat similar from the DIY Caterham I saw on Top Gear. Inside the box, what you'll get is the chassis, alloy panel set, pedals, master cylinder, suspension wishbones, suspension uprights, suspension toe link, front hubs,  brakes, brake lines, steering rack, cooling system, gear linkage, fuel tanks, dampers, drive shafts, wiring loom, glass and laminates, rear wing, exhaust, seats, wheels, and an instructional manual on how to assemble the Ultima GTR. If you take your time to assemble and if you're not fiddling with anything, you have assembled a supercar that comes with a Chevrolet 6.3L V8 engine that produces 534HP of power and 528ft-lb of torque. The standard gearbox was a Porsche G50 five speed transaxle.

"I really wish I were here" The Ultima GTR says

Now, there are numerous statements how the Ultima GTR is a world-proven speed demon. First up, they used a model that comes with a 640BHP American Speed engine, known as the Ultima GTR640, and there was a powerful model with a 720BHP engine, known as the Ultima GTR720. Later on, they have established their verified performance figures with the use of road tires and exhaust;

0-60mph: 2.7secs
0-100mph: 5.5secs
0-150mph: 11.8secs
30-70mph: 2.0secs
0-100mph-0: 10.3secs
100mph-0 Braking:  3.9secs
Speed Achieved: 204mph on the Bruntingthorpe straight
Top Speed : 231mph est. (gearing limited)


If that wasn't enough, Ultima sent one of their test drivers to lap the GTR720 round the Top Gear Test Track independently and it did it in 1:12.8 seconds, faster than every other cars The Stig tested on Top Gear, even the Ariel Atom V8, which is currently Top Gear's fastest car on the test track. Later on, it used the configuration that is not road-legal, which includes putting on racing tires, and it lapped round the track in 1:09.9, faster than the Ferrari FXX as seen on Top Gear. So the question is, how could Top Gear didn't feature this car that is much powerful than the Ariel Atom V8? Ask the producers why.

Ultima GTR in Japan?

The shadowy speed machine, the Ultima GTR, may not have a spotlight on Top Gear but on our books, we consider this as the greatest masterpiece ever to be assembled by hand. Although, I still don't know more about the Ultima GTR, I am started to like it more as a pure driving machine. It maybe a track-minded vehicle but it's road legal. There was one fact that I haven't remembered about the Ultima GTR and this was designed by Lee Noble with Ted Marlow alongside and it was designed and engineered by some blokes I haven't met in an industrial shed in Leicester. It may not be a supercar that you can park it on the Monte Carlo casino stand but this will surely give the elite supercars a run on their money...

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