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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

Cheap Ultima?


Chris Wilson

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My brother has a couple of these which get rented out for crewed track days. Really fun little cars for the money, but yeah - the running costs can be ferocious - it's taken him about 3 years to get the business back to break-even.

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My brother has a couple of these which get rented out for crewed track days. Really fun little cars for the money, but yeah - the running costs can be ferocious - it's taken him about 3 years to get the business back to break-even.

 

Are the running costs really that bad?? Its all low tech/agricultural stuff in there, not to mention the old yank V8 which are cheap as chips if you order the parts from America.

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Are the running costs really that bad?? Its all low tech/agricultural stuff in there, not to mention the old yank V8 which are cheap as chips if you order the parts from America.

 

I don't think it's so much in terms of parts' cost, it's more in terms of amount of labour. Probably less of an issue if its a hobby rather than a business, I guess....

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I don't think it's so much in terms of parts' cost, it's more in terms of amount of labour. Probably less of an issue if its a hobby rather than a business, I guess....

 

Plus the rear tyres are something like 335s IIRC on 12 inch wide rims, so mega expensive if you were doing loads of track days.

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I don't think it's so much in terms of parts' cost, it's more in terms of amount of labour. Probably less of an issue if its a hobby rather than a business, I guess....

 

The cars are designed to be built by 100% noobs, the factory has a dedicated hot line for questions etc and will help you every step of the way. My only problem is room as all my construction was going to be outside thats why I have decided to wait a few years until I get a bigger house and garage

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The cars are designed to be built by 100% noobs, the factory has a dedicated hot line for questions etc and will help you every step of the way. My only problem is room as all my construction was going to be outside thats why I have decided to wait a few years until I get a bigger house and garage

 

Not sure about your 100% Noobs statement. Unless things have changed drastically over the last few years, these cars do not just bolt together out of the box. Be prepared to re-engineer all the problems that Ted and his boys never got round to engineering properly first time round. An example was the driveline. The G50 box is mounted upside down, so the driveshaft output is much higher than the (Ford based) hubs resulting in sharp CV joint angles. To make matters worse, they were using Ford driveshafts with adapter plates to mate to the G50 box. This compounded the issue! Assuming they've fixed that issue (bespoke driveshafts), it wasn't them that organised it…..The rod type gearlinkage is a joke as well!

 

Also be wary of Ted's sales pitch. You can’t build an Ultima to his suggested budget spec without things such as oil coolers, air con etc etc. Definitely an exciting car, but far from a polished product. Did I mentioned chassis corrosion issues and no air flow across the rad at roughly 100mph on the sports? The list goes on I'm afraid……

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am seriously looking at a self build and did consider the GTR for a while but they are a bit to much of a track car for me, the clincher was the fact you haven't even got a window to open in summer just a "helicopter vent", i am now looking at another mid engine car (with proper windows :D) my particular engine of choice would be the newer 6 litre LS2 (fuel injected = RLTC:eyebrows:) you spot them on e-bay for about £3500

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I wouldn't even consider one as a road car, but it's a cheap way of going fairly quickly round a track, and still having the ability to get there and back under its own steam on public roads. If the public roads bits wasn't important you can, of course, go a LOT faster for a lot less money.

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I wouldn't even consider one as a road car, but it's a cheap way of going fairly quickly round a track, and still having the ability to get there and back under its own steam on public roads. If the public roads bits wasn't important you can, of course, go a LOT faster for a lot less money.

 

What would you have for trackdays with a 10k budget Chris, has to take 6ft5" 17 stone me. not worried if its rd legal.

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A cheap Supersports car, one of the mid engined ones might just be purchasable for 10k, certainly a front engined clubmans car could be had for that or less. Either are capable of early 2000's F3 times and will bury any road car you care to name. Ford crossflow in the Clubmans, 2 litre Vauxhall in the Supersports. Clubmans cars look "odd", some of the Supersports look stunning. They are cheap `cos the series for Supersports cars folded and they were left in limbo. Driven properly you could lap a pro driven Murcielago in 3 laps of Oulton, to give you some perspective. You'd probably never want another fast road car again, as they'd seem so slow, heavy and ill handling. Single seaters can be cheap to buy and run, but 99% of trackdays now ban them.

 

 

Odd looking front engined Clubmans:

 

http://www.racecarsdirect.com/viewlisting.php?view=11415

 

Rear engined Supersports car (too dear, hence it's been for sale for months, but similar looking things will just be in budget

 

http://www.racecarsdirect.com/viewlisting.php?view=15594

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