If you’re behind the big desk at Ultima Sports Ltd and your car, the GTR720, holds the world record for accelerating from rest to 100mph and braking to a standstill—9.4 seconds, by the way—then what record do you think you might chase next? There’s one GTR from Japan creating hype and chasing Nordschleife headlines, well now there’s one from Britain as well. I mean, if you have a Chevrolet V8 pumping out 720bhp it would be wrong not try, wouldn’t it. In fact, were it not for some unwanted rain those headlines may have already been created.

Private track time had been booked with Sport Auto Magazine on Thursday 3 July and the plans were to chase the outright road car record, currently 6 minutes 55 seconds as set by the Radical SR8 back in 2005. Tom Coronel, Nürburgring specialist and professional driver, was keen to have the track to himself after some earlier testing, “The Ultima GTR720 is the most powerful and by far the fastest road car I have ever driven. It’s an absolute missile and a huge buzz to drive! The guys at Ultima Sports have a product which is a very special machine indeed. The Ultima is an extremely well developed and sorted package. I am confident I can set a new lap record time of below 6mins 55secs for a lap as measured by Sport Auto Magazine in this car. I can’t imagine any other road car ever being able to compete with the overall performance envelope that the Ultima has to offer.”

With a top speed of 231mph (370km/h) Richard Marlow, Director of Ultima Sports Ltd, was disappointed the record attempt could not be made, “It was gutting to have had the GPS timing gear all fitted to our Ultima GTR720 with the track booked exclusively for two half hour sessions on Thursday 3rd July via Sport Auto Magazine, only for the track to be saturated by a torrential downpour, forcing us to abandon the actual lap record run.

“Unfortunately exclusive track time is at a premium and indeed we have been informed that it may be fully booked for the rest of this year so therefore despite our best efforts with the track organizers there was no opportunity for another lap record run on the following days. However, overall we all enjoyed ourselves immensely, it was a true pleasure to work with Ring expert and pro driver Tom Coronel who was right on world record pace.

“Unlike some other car manufacturers we specifically set out to achieve this road car lap record in the spirit in which we believe it is intended by driving the car on the public roads to and from the Nürburgring from our UK headquarters. The Ultima road car is very much suited and enjoyable to use on such cross European journeys with its comfortable seating, sealed luggage compartments, compliant suspension, road car levels of ground clearance, tractable engine, air conditioning and stereo system all coming in handy.

“I couldn’t resist making a detour to make full use of the de-restricted Autobahn on the return road journey back home in the early hours of the morning, with speeds in excess of 220mph being comfortably recorded.”

Managing Director of Ultima Sports Ltd, Ted Marlow, also shared his frustrations on a possible record being so close, “This was a fantastic opportunity for us to demonstrate to the world the superb road holding, aerodynamic proficiency and handling finesse of our British product, as the Ring along with the Top Gear track is one of the few tracks in existence that has publicly available verified lap times for all of the major worldwide road legal supercars in production today.

“This was intended to be yet further unequivocal proof of the Ultima GTR’s engineering excellence and our aim for this event was to make history by setting an official outright road car lap record fully independently witnessed and timed by Sport Auto Magazine in the same way that the other supercar verified lap times are recorded.

“Our plan was deliberately not to merely set a manufacturer’s claimed time without an independent witness but to return with a proven record. It’s a shame that it appears to be very difficult and costly to obtain the required exclusive track time at the Ring unless you are a mainstream manufacturer. One thing is for certain, our Ultima GTR720 is without any doubt capable of taking the honours around the challenging Nordschleife. It was truly spectacular to watch during testing and all of us here at the factory have total confidence and faith in the world leading ability of our product and are delighted with how it stormed around this demanding track.”

Don’t forget, you can click on all images for larger versions.

Source: Ultima Sports via autoblog