Ultima's story begins in 1983, when Lee Noble (who would go on to start Noble Automotive) founded Noble Motorsport and designed the Ultima Mk1 race car.

Inspired by the Group C cars of the time, it had a square-tube spaceframe chassis, the V-6 engine and transmission from a Renault 30, and other components borrowed from Ford, Lancia, and Austin.

Before customer deliveries of the Mk1 could begin, Noble launched a modified Mk2 version.

The Mk2 became fairly successful in racing, so successful, in fact that after Ted Marlow, the company's first customer fitted a Chevrolet small-block V-8, they would be banned from the series altogether.

This success wouldn’t go unseen, with McLaren themselves attracted by the “excellent engineering, outright speed, lap times and the racing prowess”.

They would go on to purchase the last two Mk3 variants for development of the world famous F1 road car.

These two, nicknamed ‘Albert and Edward’, would be invaluable development vehicles and ultimately p...