Ultima GTR racing history?

[PorscheFanNo1]

As you know the Ultima platform is a great chassie to base your ultimate road car on. But how well has their race program been? I know they raced in the British GT series in the late 90s with Chevy engines and Ford Cosworth engines but without any seccess. A very slow and unrealiable car. They raced in GT2 at that time. But what has their racing program been like? Was it ever serious, has it ever won a race, what different classes has it raced in? Must be hard to develope a car when you have no control over the engine, as Ultima is a pure chassie manufacturer.

And I'm not looking for answers like: "I dont think it was a good car". I'm looking for more facts and history or even a whole webside about it or something.

Cheers.

[ger80]

Dutch Supercar and Euro GT (that car crashed in Spa in the LMS 2006 support race). not sure what happend with it.

[notguilty]

one tired to do the 24h of Daytona in the pre-DP days.Didn't last long it was sponsored by K&N filters. I saw it in a few print ads though

[Graham Goodwin]

Originally Posted by PorscheFanNo1

As you know the Ultima platform is a great chassie to base your ultimate road car on. But how well has their race program been? I know they raced in the British GT series in the late 90s with Chevy engines and Ford Cosworth engines but without any seccess. A very slow and unrealiable car. They raced in GT2 at that time. But what has their racing program been like? Was it ever serious, has it ever won a race, what different classes has it raced in? Must be hard to develope a car when you have no control over the engine, as Ultima is a pure chassie manufacturer.

And I'm not looking for answers like: "I dont think it was a good car". I'm looking for more facts and history or even a whole webside about it or something.

Cheers.

Very slow!! - Errr not really! - Reliability might have been somewhat suspect but the Master Motorsport car (the last one to start in Brit GTs) was always quick.

You'll find plenty of detail on the free dailysportscar archive in the contemporary race reports from 2003 where you'll find the final races from two of the cars - the Colin Blower owned and run car and the Master motorsport car.

The K&N Filters sponsored car ran both in Grand-Am and (I think) in the now defunct Canadian GT Challenge

[PorscheFanNo1]

You're right, looked through the 2003 results and it was running quite stong, altho it was usually one lap down at the line, or a DNF, had a few good finnishes however.
My statemnt of very slow was more to the 97-98 seasons, atleast what I could find, they where several laps down on the leadig GT2 cars most of the time, the few times its not listed as DFN that is.

Theres also an absolutely awsome picture of the car at dailysportscar from 2003 in one test report, looks stunning!

Anyone know what different engines they've been using over the years? I only know about the Chevy and Ford Cosworth in the late 90s.

[Graham Goodwin]

Both of the cars that ran in 2003 had Chevy based V8s

[Evil Fuzzy]

There were a couple of cars in Belcar in the p

[Evil Fuzzy]

There were a couple of cars in Belcar in the past few years. In 2004 Belgium Racing and Qvick Racing each entered one of the cars they had developed together. Both cars were fitted with 3.2 litre BMW M3 engines, I believe. In 2005 both teams entered their car again, although the Qvick car now had deep endplates on the rear wing. Belgium Racing entered their car again in 2006. The Belgium Racing car was entered again this year, but a lot of problems have prevented the team from running all races so far. An Ultima also features in this years Endurance Cup at Zolder. I think this car, entered by Euroracing, is the old Qvick car with some further revisions to the rear wing, but I'm not sure. The Ultimas were quite fast compared to the Porsche GT3's they shared the class with, although not always reliable. Despite some reliability issues, both cars finished the 24 hours of Zolder in 2004. A year later, the Belgium Racing car even finished 4th overall and 2nd in class in the 24 hours.

[PorscheFanNo1]

Thanks for the info Evil Fuzzy! Thats what I was looking for. Anyone know their history in the British GT now too?

[geeteeone]

I'll have a go, since I'm originally from Hinckley, where Ultima are based, so I have a particular fondness for them.

I've tried to list the various cars in each year, and the drivers, although the list might not be complete.

1997 Chas Berger Motorsport - Robin Rex/Graham Morris/Tony Lanfranchi/Graham Coombes - Ultima GTR Cosworth
1997 Philip Hopkins Motorsport - Philip Hopkins/Geoff Janes/Geoff Kimber-Smith - Ultima Mk4 Chevrolet
1998 Philip Hopkins Motorsport - Philip Hopkins/Geoff Kimber-Smith - Ultima Mk4 Chevrolet
1998 Chas Berger Motorsport - Robin Rex/Mark James/Mark Pashley/Mike Millard - Ultima GTR Cosworth
1999 Chas Berger Motorsport - Robin Rex/Terry Pudwell/Ian Astley - Ultima GTR Cosworth
2000 Speedworx - Terry Pudwell/Mark Pashley - Ultima GTR Cosworth
2001 Colin Blower Motorsport - Colin Blower/Edd Sharpe - Ultima GTR Chevrolet
2002 Master Motorsport - Steven Brady - Ultima GTR Chevrolet
2003 Master Motorsport - Steven Brady/Aaron Scott - Ultima GTR Chevrolet
2003 Colin Blower Motorsport - Colin Blower/Jay Shepard - Ultima GTR Chevrolet
2004 Master Motorsport - Steven Brady/Allan Bonner - Ultima GTR Chevrolet
2005 Master Motorsport - Steven Brady/Calum Lockie - Ultima GTR Chevrolet

[PorscheFanNo1]

Thanks geeteeone! Anyone know what modifications the race car has to the road going GTR? The bodywork and wing looks very different, espeially on the Bokkenrijders (Qvick) car raced in Belcar, that one looks more like a DP tbh. But how is the chassie different?
They really should make those bodyparts avaliable for the road cars. Especially a kit like the Blower's car from 2003, stunning stunning car!

I also red the Ultima mk2 in the late 80s won almost every race 5 years in a row, what serie was that? The precursor to the British GT? And what regs was that? Didnt look like anything I've seen before.

[Mosport Fan]

The Canadian Ultimas- one was owned by TMI Racing and raced by Brent Gates and Mark Swain I believe. Was sponsored by Canada Post and Sympatico internet. Another was raced by Lew MacKenzie (yes, the Canadian general) and Rolf Von Echelbrechten. Sponsored by Rogers/AT&T, so the joke was "the battle of the Internet companies". There was an Ultima Spyder run by John Brenner, not sure the story on that one.

All were Chevrolet V8 power AFAIK

[wekatz]

The austrian team Grasser Racing developed a GT1 spec Ultima GTR powered by a Chey V8 and entered it in some races in 2005 and 2006 (German Divinol Cup, Rhinos "Euro" GT Series).
It last appeared at the "Jim Clark Revival" early in 2007 as entrant of the german STT series. But did not start because of technical gremlins.
The teams website gives some technical infomations about the car.

[PorscheFanNo1]

Thanks. Anyone know where they get those more downforce fronts from?

[Duffacus]

Isn't the Stealth also based on the Ultima?

[ger80]

Originally Posted by Duffacus

Isn't the Stealth also based on the Ultima?

Yes, think so. Prosport 3000 is something completly different?

[fausto]

Originally Posted by Duffacus

Isn't the Stealth also based on the Ultima?

I remember I read it was based on the Prosport3000

[FordNut]

The Stealth B6 is an 'evolution' of the ProSport 3000/LM3000 chassis design, but the ProSport chassis was based on the Ultima chassis with modifications to make it more suitable for racing. The original Ultima and the ProSport were both designed by Lee Noble, and he also designed the chassis for the NF Ferrari P4 replica (which is very similar to the Ultima's).

Bob Light, the creator of the Stealth, is probably the person most associated with racing Ultimas, at least here in the UK. I believe any stories of winning all the races in a season probably refer to him (I can remember he and the car dominating the kit-car championships in the late eighties, from the reports in Cars and Car Conversions - they even did a cover feature on the car). He started out with a 3.9-litre Rover V8 in it, but later upgraded to the ubiquitous 5.7 litre Chevy, before moving onto the ProSport.

[wheadon]

mclaren used the ultima for a test hack for the mclaren f1

http://www.ultimacars.com/fra_company_info.htm