KICKIN' AND SCREAMIN'...........

As pro-European as the Top Gear team is you would think they’d jump at the chance to have a supercar that is not only European but British as well run at their test track for the outright lap record – but they didn’t.  So, Richard Marlow, head guy at Ultima Sports Ltd, decided to have the record set independently, so confident he was in his creation. The main selling point of the Ultima is the bang-for-the-buck value  – due in large part to low overhead and utilizing single 4 bbl carb’d small block Chevy “crate engines” for power – beating cars that cost many times over what you pay for an Ultima.  Note that the car was driven to and from the test venue, something that Ultima are quite proud of and will always remind us that is not something their competition can claim.

Tuesday 23rd October 2007

British supercar manufacturers Ultima Sports Ltd have this week celebrated their 15th year anniversary in style by obliterating the road car lap record on the track which is used by Top Gear to record their lap times by over four and a half seconds in their standard production Ultima GTR720 road car, which was a record previously held according to the Top Gear chart by the Swedish Koenigsegg CCX.

Driven by Ultima’s own mystery driver, the standard production 200 + mph Ultima GTR720 equipped with fully e-marked road tyres which was driven to the test venue, recorded a blistering fully verified lap time of 1min12.8secs, demolishing the lap time of the £415,000 Koenigsegg CCX of 1min17.6secs on the Top Gear chart. The record attempt was organized by Ultima Sports Ltd themselves in conjunction with Plans Motorsport after apparently being overlooked by the producers at Top Gear TV over the last couple of years despite repeated approaches.

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The event was conducted in conjunction with Plans Motorsport whom were present at the test to oversee and witness the successful road car lap record attempt, their own GPS Race Technology DL1 data logging equipment was fitted to the car for a full set of independently verified lap time data.

The Ultima GTR720 tested is a full road going car with compliant suspension and often used as a daily driver. All the vehicles produced by Ultima Sports Ltd have the usual road luxuries such as air conditioning, ICE, leather trim, sealed luggage carrying compartments and of course road car levels of ground clearance suitable for speed humps and other road obstacles. The Ultima GTR720 is equipped with a standard 5 speed Porsche G50-03 transmission and a standard production option 720bhp engine from the OE engine suppliers American Speed (www.amerspeed.com).

The Ultima Factory has recorded yet another blistering statistic in the multiple world record holding Ultima GTR supercar. Driven by Ultima director, Richard Marlow, the GTR recorded a standing ¼ mile time of 9.9secs @ 143mph terminal speed at the FIA approved and verified Santa Pod Raceway.

Check-out all the other world records this car holds including the 0-100mph-0 record of 9.4 seconds.  All the official company videos here on this one page.

Well, he was when this video was shot in 1993.  This is RJ Gotlieb at 19 years old running his 1969 “Big Red” Camaro at the Silver State classic in Nevada.  RJ and Big Red are now legendary in open road racing.  I remember reading in Hot Rod or Car Craft years ago about an incident at the La Carerra Panamericana (I think) where Big Red passed a guy in a Ferrari 365 GTB Daytona and spun him around in the process; “like a top” is how I seem to recall the article stated it.  See, even as Gotlieb compares the Camaro’s aerodynamics to those of a brick, the car pushes a lot of air off its front, and that air got pushed right under the back of that Ferrari as it went by.

Contrary to the title of the video, RJ didn’t hit 230 mph; he only hit 220.   He explains that, because of the car’s poor aerodynamics, he relies on a big block (Chev 540 cid, Donovan aluminum block) not so much for the 800 bhp but for that 750 lbs/ft of torque to get the car moving, and he demonstrates it pulling out of the high speed corners without downshifting, something that he doesn’t have the luxury of doing given that he’s only got a 4-speed (I’m 99% sure, most likely an M22) so you know he’s running something like a 2.73:1 diff to hit those speeds.  You’ll see that this thing is uber fast coming down the straights and sounds absolutely magnificent doing it.