Buying a kit car is a fun business. When first purchasing a kit car with my dad for some summer fun a few years back. We had loads of fun visiting the different kit cars shows, getting involved and asking questions and talking to different kit car manufacturers and owners club, but before we even got to that stage we had a few things to sort out.

To buy new or built? That is the question

I’m sure everyone who is thinking about buying a kit car thinks the same thing as me and my dad. The original plan was to buy the car in kit form and build it in a farther, son project. Although this would have been brilliant building a car together and learning vast knowledge about how cars are put together (for me anyway) this just wasn’t practical and as it turns out not very cost effective.

The problem of buying a new kit car in kit form

I don’t know about you, but if you’re anything like me and most people on the planet you will have limited spare time, and lack of time is a kit car killer. How many stories/people have you talked to that have a part built kit car in the garage? A LOT! Talking to people who have built kit cars in the past it took them hundreds of hours and years to complete, and adding finishing touches and improvements is an on going project. Besides the time factor, how much have you budgeted for buying and developing a kit car? Buying a new kit car is very expensive, although it may not seem like it when you’re buying the kit car in stages all the finishing touches and hours put in equal a lot of money!

Oh yea, and there’s the small matter of the SVA test!

Why you should buy a pre built kit car

Now i’m not saying don’t buy a new kit car, many kit car builders take great plesure from building a kit car from scratch. But this is why me and my dad bought a pre built kit car.

Time – As mentioned before it takes a long time to build a kit car. Time that we just didn’t have, especially with me being at university at the time it just wasn’t an option.

Cost – it was far more cost effective to buy a prebuilt car and make adjustments later on as we wanted, this way there was no SVA to pass and we could start driving the car straight away!

Do your research first i guess is the point of this post and be practicle about how much time and budget you can put into your car. if you buy a kit and part build it then sell it, you will lose out on a lot of money and not even have the driving pleasure of a kit car.

Show us your kit car

Have a kit car? We want to hear from you, even if it’s part built! send pictures of your car to martin@whatkitcar.com

The History Of The Ultima GTR

1983 was the year of the first MK1 Ultima, Lee Noble automotive engineer better known for Noble sports cars setup and launced the MK1 Ultima GTR. The Ultima used a square space tube chassis brakes and steering from a Ford Cortina as well as parts from the Austin Princess and Renault 30.

The Ultima MK2

The Ultima MK2 was developed and made during 1984-1989 which included some much changing the Renault rear suspension.

Using the Ultima MK2 Ted Marlow won many race series. During this time racing the Ultima replaced the Renault engine with a Chevrolet V8 5000 and later with the bigger small block 602 litre V8. Modifications were made to the body and the Ultima MK3 was born which doesn’t look very far off the latest world record hording Ultima GTR.

Smashing the 0-100mph-0 world record

Fast forward to 2004 sees Ultima smashing the 0-100-0 mph world record with a standard production car pushing out 640bhp. The car was driven by Richard Marlow and really put Ultima on the automotive map. Watch the world record video to the right.

Top Gear Track Record Smashed

This is one of my favorite things about this car. You can build one of these in your garage at home and create a super ear eater. Ultima unofficially took the car around the top gear track to see what time they would get, the results are amasing! The Ultima blasts through the track to record a time of 1:12.8 an amazing 5 seconds quicker than the Koenigsegg CXX (with top gear spoiler) watch the video to the above!If you want to buy one of these amasing cars or find out more info then check out the Ultima website

Whatkitcar.com has just been setup and is here to provide news, reviews, pictures, events, builds, anything to do with kit cars. To do this I need your help!

Building a kit car takes many hours to build as I’m sure your aware, so why not show off your kit car on this very website! Even if it’s not finished send in your pictures and comments of your kit car build to martin@whatkitcar.com

Send In The Following Details

* What Kit your building/buikt

* Why you decided to build this particular kit car

* Pictures from start to finish

* Problems encountered and how you overcame them

* Estimated build time

* Estimated Build cost

* Personal notes/comments/findings about your kit car

It does’t matter if you don’t want to give all these details, but will help with the write up about your kit car which will be published on whatkitcar.com