Self-build supercars
Save money and build a supercar yourself? We meet a man who's done it and ask whether it's a fanciful dream or practical reality.
Andrew English
13 Apr 2010
telegraph.co.uk
The exhausts are as wide as a man's leg and stained with carbon. It's the first thing you notice as the motorised door slowly rises on Keith Lake's garage. Well, that and rear tyres capable of blotting out the sun. Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione Rosso coachwork glints evilly in the gloom.
"It took ages to get the paint codes," Lake says, "but I only paid £1,500 to have it painted. They did a good job, didn't they?" Indeed they did. Lake's supercar might be done on the cheap, but there's nothing to indicate that from the outside. Nor when he starts it. On a damp morning, the boom of a small-block Chevy V8 fills the Kent suburban street. They must love him around here.
It's a supercar of course, but no ordinary supercar. The Ultima GTR is a DIY supercar. Laughing yet? I wouldn't. The GTR has a claimed top speed of 231mph and will rocket to 60mph from a standstill in just 2.6 seconds. Designed by engineer Lee Noble in 1983, the Ultima is far more than a rocket-powered sledge.
It was originally designed around a Renault 30 or 20TS, which were then busy recycling themselves in scrapyards all over England. Front suspension and steering came from the commonplace Ford Cortina and dotted around were parts from an Austin Princess and even a Lancia Beta.
"It took three months to build," Lake says. "I did it one summer." Lake, a chauffeur, knows a good car when he sees one and when he first saw the Ultima at the Stoneleigh motor show, he was very impressed. "I thought 'I'd like that', but at the time there was no way I could afford it," he says. A few years later, Lake came into a bit of money and beat a path to Ultima in Hinckley, Leicestershire. "I'd always messed about with cars," he says, "and I'd built an AC Cobra replica called a Pilgrim Sumo, so the build didn't worry me much."
In fact, the Ultima has been designed so that no engineering experience is necessary to build it. "The majority of our owners have never built a car in their lives," says Ted Marlow, Ultima's owner and managing director. "The kit is a bolt-together thing really; we've done all the engineering."
Lake concurs. "I can't think of anything I didn't like," he says. "It's such an easy kit to make, everything fits." Lake admits that he was so anxious to build his car that he didn't sleep the night before it was delivered. "I was like a kid at Christmas," he says. "As soon as the chassis arrived, I got it onto the trestles and got started straight away."
Building a supercar in a recession? Lake didn't quite have all the money, but says Ultima was fine about supplying the car in sub-assemblies so that he could get on with it and buy another series of parts when he could afford it. "You should budget around £30,000 if you're going to do it properly," he says.
Lake's Ultima is certainly quick. It produces about 400bhp and 400lb ft, although the factory can achieve closer to 700bhp from this engine at the cost of reliability, flexibility and, of course, fuel consumption.
In fact, Lake's car hardly needs a gearbox as it is perfectly possible to pull away in third. All too easy in fact, as the linkage redefines indistinct. "You get used to it," he says, but I'm not so sure. It's a shame, as that's the only bum note in the whole of this immaculately prepared car. The paint finish is so deep you could climb into it and the doors and panels all fit and close properly. The upholstered dashboard is a fine piece of work.
The cabin is spacious, although climbing in requires flexibility. Once ensconced you can get a panoramic view of the road ahead. The steering is very direct and takes some getting used to so as to avoid weaving down the road. The big Pirelli P Zero tyres flap about in the potholes left by the winter snow, but the ride is comfortable and while the cabin is noisy it is not deafening.
So would he build another? Like a shot. "Mrs Lake doesn't like the Ultima much," he says. "It attracts too much attention and she doesn't like trying to get out of it in a skirt."
So what will he choose next time? Lake grins as he reveals he might be turning away from the self-build path. "I've got my eye on an Aston Martin," he says. "A DB9."
Beware bureaucracy
To drive a kit car on the road it must first be registered and allocated a VIN and registration plate. This means the vehicle has to be inspected by the Vehicle & Operator Services Agency to check that it complies with type approval and safety regulations from the UK and Europe.
A new procedure known as Individual Vehicle Approval has been in force since April last year. Without approval you will never be allowed to register the car and drive it on the public road.
