Starting the Engine

Marlon was looking for a backer, and I liked the idea of breaking some world
records.

I met Marlon when I was a business trip to Indianapolis. I had a little jet back then, a Hawker

A limo was scheduled to pick me up and take me to my meeting, and it turned out that Marlon was the driver.

It didn’t take long for our conversation to turn to cars, and it turned out that Marlon was doing this limo driving on the side, while he had a shop where he would rebuild other people’s cars. But his dream was to build his own car, break some records. I liked the idea of breaking some records. In a car that I could drive around on the street, legally!

Marlon started by designing the car on paper, working out various problems in his mind. As Marlon's father, Dave, puts it:

"He knew exactly what he wanted before they even put the engine together. He knew the people that he wanted to design it, the people he wanted to build it, two years before it even happened he had it all in his mind."

He named it the G-Force because is what a car creates when it travels in a circle and under heavy acceleration or deceleration. The G-Force car is so named because it has a body style that can handle the highest G-forces for a car in its class.

Marlon started with a body and chassis from Ultima.

Then he completely changed it. The Ultima chassis can handle a small block up to about 600 horsepower.  So he strengthened the chassis, changed the suspension, added different shocks.  The driver is insolated from fire, there’s a stainless steel firewall. It has cross sections built into in to protect the drive in case it turns over.

Ultima is an English company, so the car had to be set up to driver in the United States. He changes the way the fuel tanks were mounted. He had to adapt everything as the car was never set up for turbo-charged engines.

Marlon says:

My heroes are John Force the professional drag racer, and Evel Knievel

I think you can tell that just from looking at the design of this car, and listening to its engine.

I like mid-engine cars. American V-8 power, and, you'll never ask for any more horsepower with my cars. I want 'em to be the fastest cars in the world. You always see the European automobiles, like the Ferrari's, the Lamborghini, Mazarati’s, always takin' the world record in speed and performance.

I wanted to bring those records back to the United States.  We have the Big Three auto makers here; we have a great racing heritage here. I want to bring those records home.