Talk Morgan Forums Community General Photo Gallery Swept away by an Avalanche...

Crunchie and myself visited the Ultima factory a couple of weeks ago with a view to possibly placing an order for a factory-built car, but the quote for this was £110K. A bit rich for us for a track-day special and so we decided to buy one on the second hand market.

Well last week we did the deal and bought this Ultima Avalanche, it is a top-specced car with a slightly detuned Chevrolet LS7 engine, giving 640 bhp which in a car weighting 930 kg makes for interesting performance. It's certainly too fast for my wheel-twirling ability, but we both look forward to our first track day event.

The car is just two-years old and has done two trips to Le Mans, but total mileage is less than 2,500 miles. We pick it up this week, just shopping for insurance quotes...

Are you sure it's not just still in primer ?

Many congratulations to the pair of you; it looks like a truly awesome machine.

Did you get to keep the number plates as well?

I'm not sure how long Crunchie will last inside the cockpit on his next SKCC run he might need two pair of ear defenders.

I'm sure the pair of you will have some fun in it, so when's the first track day?

How about some of these on the side they'll go down well in Windsor High Street.

Looks fabulous - should be a lot of fun to drive.

Brian ,

I am sure it will be enormous fun , BUT please make sure you atune yourself to it gradually. Something as powerful and as light as that is going to take a lot of catching when it does let go, and it is also going to be travelling very quickly indeed.

I believe it's quite easy to get the mpg into single figures, even with road driving!

However, you only live once and it should be a shed-load of fun...

Wow!
I was going to make a couple of silly comments, but Giles etc. have beaten me to it, so all I can say is ENJOY!!

As you say Mog 615, and others have alluded to, this is a serious amount of bhp and will have to be handled with care. It is certainly well beyond my own driving limitations as I have mentioned earlier, Crunchie is a better driver and younger, but even for him this car will be more than a stretch.

Unfortunately whilst my other cars are all insured for 'any driver' this one will be named drivers, but if we have a TM get-together somewhere I won't mind bringing it along and giving rides; only for the truly brave!

No news on the stripes yet Asbo, but thanks for giving us the details of your favoured supplier. Please don't bother about your furry dice supplier, as this is not that type of car.

Wow that's an amazing bit of kit.

I know it is rude to talk about the price of things, but I would be really interested to know what sort of price one could find a car such as yours please?

As I think I mentioned before, a fully built Ultima from the factory with an LS7 with 720 bhp and a good, but not extensive build would be around £110K. The engine alone from American Speed is circa £18K and you need a Porsche Turbo transaxle to take the power, etc, etc. Each level of improvement costs money and can have a knock on effect on other components.

Our own car is two years old and thus as you can see from the Pistonheads classifieds the price is generally in the band from £65K to £75K, but the spec dictates! The component cost of our car was £110K, and to this must be added the notional hourly rate for building it. Luckily our seller was desperate to sell for health reasons and we were able to do a good deal.

Good luck Paul, hope you find one that suits. HTH.