Ultima in Forza Horizon 6

Country: UK | Founded: 1992

Ultima Sports Ltd has been operating out of a small facility in Hinckley, Leicestershire since 1992, building some of the fastest track-focused kit cars the UK has ever produced. The company doesn't have a Formula 1 pedigree or a multi-billion-dollar R&D; budget. What they have is a simple formula: take a tubular steel spaceframe chassis, drop a Chevrolet LS V8 in the middle, wrap it in lightweight fiberglass bodywork, and sell it to people who think factory supercars are too soft. The Ultima GTR held the world record for 0-100-0 mph for years. The Evolution variant broke Nurburgring lap times that embarrassed cars costing five times as much. This is not a brand that cares about what you think of its badge.

In FH6 Ultima is represented by a single car: the RS at PI 860 in S1 class. This is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that the RS is genuinely fast, surprisingly well-balanced for a mid-engine V8 track car, and costs way less than anything with similar performance. The curse is that nobody knows what an Ultima is. You'll line up in online lobbies and people will assume you're driving some obscure DLC car or a body kit conversion. They learn real quick when the lights go green and there's a 6.2-liter V8 screaming past their Italian exotic. The Ultima RS is the definition of a sleeper in FH6 and tbh that underdog status is half the appeal.

One car. British engineering. American V8 heart. Let's dig in.

Available Vehicles

The RS is the only Ultima in FH6. No GTR, no Evolution, no Can-Am , though previous Horizon titles have included older Ultima variants and Playground Games could easily add them as seasonal content. At PI 860 the RS sits in a competitive S1 bracket alongside cars like the Porsche 911 GT3 RS (PI 895) and the Acura NSX (PI 870), and it holds its own surprisingly well given the price difference.

Driving Characteristics

The Ultima RS weighs roughly 930 kg. To put that in perspective, a Mazda MX-5 Miata weighs about 1,000 kg. The Ultima has a supercharged 6.2-liter LS V8 making over 1,200 horsepower in its most extreme real-world trim. The FH6 version is tuned down to fit the PI 860 bracket but the weight-to-power ratio is still nuts. You feel this in every corner. The car changes direction with a willingness that makes mid-engine Ferraris feel lazy. There's almost no inertia to overcome , you turn the wheel and the car turns. No delay, no body roll, no waiting for the chassis to settle. It's like driving a go-kart that someone bolted a Corvette engine to.

The LS V8 power delivery is where the RS separates itself from other S1 track cars. Unlike high-strung European V8s that need revs to wake up, the LS makes torque from idle and keeps making it until you run out of RPM. In FH6 this means you can short-shift at 5,500 RPM and still pull hard out of corners without waiting for the power band. This is genuinely useful on tight circuits where you're constantly going from second to third to fourth , you can leave the car in a higher gear than you'd expect and let the torque do the work. It's a lazy way to drive and it's also faster because you're not wasting time on gear changes.

The handling balance is closer to neutral than you'd expect from a mid-engine car. The LS V8 is mounted longitudinally behind the cabin and the fuel tank sits up front, which gives a roughly 42/58 front-rear weight distribution. On corner entry the car rotates willingly , trail brake into a hairpin and the rear comes around with a progressive, controllable slide that makes you feel like a better driver than you actually are. Mid-corner the balance stays neutral and you can adjust your line with the throttle. Exit traction is phenomenal because the engine is sitting directly over the drive wheels. The Ultima hooks up out of slow corners better than any other S1 car I've driven.

But there are rough edges and you need to know about them. The Ultima RS has no ABS, no traction control, no stability management , or at least the game models it that way. Lock the brakes and the tires just stop rotating. Apply too much throttle and the rear steps out with zero electronic intervention. This is a raw, analog driving experience in a class full of cars that have computer-controlled everything. I love it. It's the reason I keep coming back to this car. But if you're used to modern S1 cars that catch your mistakes, the RS will humble you in the first five minutes. The learning curve is steep and the car does not forgive sloppy inputs. Smooth braking, smooth steering, smooth throttle. The car rewards technique and punishes impatience.

The biggest weakness and it's a significant one: aerodynamic stability at high speed. The RS has functional aero , a front splitter, a rear diffuser, and that massive rear wing , but at speeds above 170 mph the car gets light. Really light. The front end starts to wander, the steering goes numb, and any steering input feels like a suggestion rather than a command. On circuits with long straights like Coastal Highway this is a genuine limitation. You can mitigate it with suspension tuning , lower the front ride height, add some front downforce if the game lets you adjust aero, stiffen the rear springs to keep the diffuser working , but you can't completely eliminate it. The RS is a car built for British B-roads and track days, not 200 mph sweepers, and that DNA shows up in the high-speed behavior.

Best Events

The Ultima RS is built for road racing on tight to medium-speed circuits. Guanajuato is the standout track , the constant direction changes, short straights, and technical corner sequences play perfectly to the car's lightweight agility and LS torque. You'll gap cars with 30-40 more PI through the twisty sections and the straight-line speed deficit hardly matters because there aren't any long straights. The Mountain Pass circuit is another strong pick, particularly the downhill sections where the car's light weight makes braking distances shorter and direction changes faster.

Street scene events work well and for an interesting reason: the RS's compact dimensions. The car is physically smaller than most S1 competitors , it's about the footprint of a Lotus Exige , and that narrowness lets you thread through traffic gaps that wider cars can't fit through. Combined with the instant turn-in response, street racing in the RS feels like a different game entirely. You're not winning through power. You're winning through agility and traffic management.

Sprint races and highway circuits are not the RS's comfort zone. The aero instability above 170 mph and the naturally aspirated V8's top-end power limitations mean you'll struggle to hold position on fast circuits. The car can defend on the straights but it can't attack. Your only strategy on highway tracks is to build a gap in the corners and pray it's enough to survive the straights. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't.

Dirt racing is actually doable with rally suspension and off-road tires, which surprised me. The lightweight chassis and rear weight bias make the RS surprisingly agile on gravel , it rotates willingly under braking and the LS torque pulls you out of slow dirt corners with authority. It's not competitive against dedicated rally cars in the same PI range but it's way better than a mid-engine track car has any right to be. For casual dirt racing or the occasional mixed-surface event it's genuinely fun.

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Tuning Guide

The Ultima RS needs more tuning attention than most S1 cars because the factory setup is designed for British track days, not FH6's varied road surfaces and competitive racing demands. The three biggest areas for improvement: suspension compliance for FH6's bumpy roads, gearing to match the circuits, and differential tuning to make the most of that LS torque.

Tire Pressure

Drop 2 PSI front and 3 PSI rear for technical circuits. The rear needs more contact patch because it's doing double duty , handling the LS V8's torque AND managing the car's rear weight bias. The extra rear footprint makes a noticeable difference in third-gear corner exits where the Ultima tends to step out if you're too aggressive. For highway circuits bump pressures back to stock or even 1 PSI over. The aero instability at high speed gets worse with soft tire sidewalls and firmer pressures keep the contact patch more predictable.

Suspension

Stock springs are too stiff , Ultima set them up for smooth tracks, not FH6's randomly bumpy roads. Soften by 8 percent front, 10 percent rear. The rear needs more compliance because that's where the weight is, and a rear end that skips over mid-corner bumps in a mid-engine car leads to snap oversteer. Dampers: soften rebound by two clicks front, three clicks rear. The car settles faster after road imperfections and doesn't get into that oscillating bounce cycle on uneven surfaces. Anti-roll bars: keep the stock ratio but soften both by one click , the chassis is stiff enough from the spaceframe design that you don't need aggressive bars to control roll. Softer bars actually improve mid-corner grip by letting each tire follow the road surface independently.

Differential

RWD only. Set acceleration lock at 78 percent , slightly higher than stock. The LS V8 has enough torque that the stock diff setting lets the inside tire spin up on corner exit, and 78 percent forces both rear tires to share the load. Deceleration lock at 18 percent. This keeps the rear stable under braking without pushing the front wide. The RS already rotates well on corner entry, so a low decel setting preserves that natural agility while preventing the car from becoming too loose under hard braking.

Gearing

This is the biggest lap time gain on the RS. Ultima geared the car for British circuits and European autobahn cruising. FH6 tracks need considerably shorter ratios. Shorten the final drive by 10 percent as a starting point. The car will pull harder out of every slow corner and you'll actually use all six gears on the longest straights. For tight circuits like Guanajuato you can go as far as 14 percent shorter , the top speed loss doesn't matter because you never reach those speeds anyway. The mid-range acceleration gain is worth 0.3-0.5 seconds per lap depending on the circuit.

Brakes

The Ultima RS is light, which works in your favor for braking. At 930 kg the car doesn't need as much stopping power as heavier S1 competitors. But the stock brakes are still inadequate for competitive racing. Upgrade to race brakes , the improvement is most noticeable in the last 15 meters of braking where the car goes from "is it going to stop?" to "oh, it stopped." On heavy braking zones like the end of the Guanajuato straight this upgrade alone is worth two tenths. Weight reduction is already baked into the car so brake upgrades are among the best PI investments you can make.

Rival Comparison

At PI 860 in S1 the Ultima RS faces some stiff competition. The Porsche 911 GT3 RS (PI 895) has more downforce and a higher redline but weighs more and costs way more. The Acura NSX (PI 870) has AWD and hybrid torque fill but lacks the raw mechanical connection. The Lotus Emira (PI 840) is lighter and more agile but has significantly less power. The RS carves out a specific niche: more power-to-weight than anything at its PI, enough grip to use it, and a driving experience that makes you work for every tenth.

The most interesting comparison is against the Lotus Emira. Both are mid-engine British sports cars with similar philosophies , lightweight, focused, no unnecessary tech. The Emira is 100 kg lighter and has sharper turn-in. The RS has 200 more horsepower and way more torque. On tight circuits the Emira edges ahead through pure agility. On circuits with longer straights the RS walks away through sheer power. The deciding factor between these two is driving preference, not lap time. The Emira is a scalpel. The RS is a sledgehammer. Both are valid approaches to going fast.

Collection Guide

The Ultima RS is an Autoshow purchase at around 180,000 credits. That's it. That's the entire collection strategy. For a PI 860 S1 track car that competes with vehicles costing 5-10 times as much, 180k is an absolute steal. If you don't have 180k credits you can earn it in an hour of casual racing and wheelspins. There's no grind, no FOMO, no wheelspin luck required. Just buy it and drive it.

The RS hasn't appeared as a seasonal reward or Forzathon shop item yet, but given the price is already so low it wouldn't matter much if it did. This is comfortably the best value proposition in S1 class and one of the best credits-to-performance ratios in FH6. If you're building an S1 garage on a budget, the Ultima RS should be your first purchase.

Common Tuning Mistakes

Maxing the supercharger and ignoring everything else. The LS V8 already makes more than enough power for the PI 860 bracket and adding boost without upgrading tires, suspension, and brakes creates a car that's genuinely dangerous to drive. The Ultima's lightweight chassis means power upgrades have an outsized effect , 50 extra horsepower in a 930 kg car is proportionally way more significant than 50 horsepower in a 1,500 kg car. If you want more power, do it after the chassis can handle it.

Trying to fix the high-speed instability with aero upgrades alone. The RS's front-end lightness above 170 mph is a fundamental characteristic of the car's short wheelbase and light weight. Adding downforce helps but doesn't solve it. The real fix is in the suspension: lower the front ride height by two clicks, raise the rear by one click, and stiffen the rear springs slightly. This changes the car's rake angle and plants the front end more effectively than any aero tweak. It's not a permanent cure , the car will still feel light at very high speeds , but it moves the threshold from "sketchy at 170" to "sketchy at 190," which on most FH6 circuits is the difference between manageable and terrifying.

Neglecting the brakes because "the car is light." Yes, 930 kg doesn't need massive stoppers. But FH6 racing involves braking from speeds that no real-world Ultima RS owner would ever attempt. The stock brakes will do one lap at race pace and then the pedal goes long. Race brakes aren't optional if you're doing competitive road racing , they're the difference between braking at the 100-meter board and braking at the 80-meter board, and those 20 meters are where you win or lose races.