Ginetta G15

Small sports cars flourished in the late 1950s and 1960s where, encouraged by the narrow, twisting British roads, driving for pure fun was a favourite pastime of the sporting motorist.

To capitalize on this, the major manufacturers produced several open top, two seat cars like the MG Midget and the Triumph Spitfire but the way was open, too, for smaller concerns to take the components on offer from the larger manufacturers and build them into their own sports cars.

Ginetta Cars began as far back as the late 1950s in Suffolk, England where four brothers began building both road and track cars. This was very much a family concern and cars were built and sold directly from the factory.

Initially, the firm became adept at building cars for racing but around 1967 decided to put together a road car, the Ginetta G15, using parts primarily from the Hillman Imp but also from the Triumph Spitfire. Being a small concern, cars were more or less built to order and production of Ginetta G15 continued until around 1974. However, I believe some were produced to order in the early 1980s.

The car has a glass-fibre body bolted to a strong steel chassis in space-frame fashion. It was not a big car, some 12 foot long and less than 5 foot across so that two normal size adults sit more or less shoulder to shoulder. It is also, as will be seen from the illustrations, extremely low being less than four foot in height so that entry and exit required either youth or some considerable dexterity!

The Hillman Imp Sport engine is mounted at the back overhanging the rear wheels and the front contains the fuel tank and spare wheel. At just over 11 cwt unladen the car is as light as it is low and this allows the bhp to flow through to the back wheels and propel the car with as little resistance from the air as possible.

The Imp engine is already a light aluminium unit with a high compression ratio and so, to aid reliability, was not specially tuned. As it is, it produces a respectable 51 bhp to give the little Ginetta a top speed of a little short of 100 mph and a 0 to 60 time just under 13 seconds. By the standards of the day this was not startling performance but, from an engine less than 1000 cc, it was very creditable. In addition, the top speed and acceleration were good enough to keep up with the Triumph Spitfire and also the smaller MG as will be seen below. However, that is not the whole story since the Ginetta would soon lose the competition with its superior cornering!

Power was transferred to the road through the all-synchro gearbox, again borrowed from the Imp Sport. The transmission was installed as it was shipped to them except for shortening the gear lever to better fit the smaller cockpit, helping, incidentally, to create a quicker, more precise change.

Triumph Spitfire steering and front suspension are used and the front suspension is adjusted to give negative camber. Rear suspension comes from an Imp sport with its semi-trailing arm and braking uses Triumph Spitfire discs at the front with drums from the Imp at the rear. The use of Triumph steering from the Herald/Spitfire also gives the Ginetta a good turning circle of less than 24 foot.

In front of the driver is the customary large speedo and rev counter while the other instruments, fuel, water temp and oil pressure, are located in the centre of the dash. However, being of narrow design, these instruments are not too far away and easy to see. The interior gives an air of quiet efficiency rather than comfort.

While it was possible to buy the car from the factory ready-built, it was also available as a kit and with good reason since in kit form it represents very good value for money. Of course, most purchasers were enthusiasts anyway who are used to working with cars and putting it together was no major undertaking. The point was that built and tested versions were so much more expensive.

Prices for 1968 for the Ginetta and competition were as follows:

Ginetta G15 built and tested..... £1023

Ginetta G15 in component form.... £ 799

Austin Healey Sprite............. £ 724

Triumph Spitfire................. £ 765

MG MGB........................... £1024

Compared to the MG Midget and Triumph Spitfire of the time, it was marginally slower in top speed, marginally quicker to 60 but better by some 10 mpg on fuel consumption. As to the much more civilised and larger-engined MGB, this was a lot faster and slightly quicker on acceleration

These days the Ginetta G15 is a nice car if you can find one and a good one will set you back around £4,000 and twice that for a mint example.

As a concern, Ginetta continued in business until the brothers retired in 1989 after 31 years. Then, after a slight hiccup, Ginetta was again under new ownership and cars are now being produced in Leeds, England. These days vehicles are just for the track and more details can be found on the Ginetta website, the link is at the end of the article.

Bing’s long search page has some nice images to look through and the link is here while Yahoo, if you change to ‘Wallpaper’ in the filter menu has just a few but they are worth seeing.The link to Yahoo images is here.

There is also an interesting film about the Walklett brothers showing some close-up views of the factory. The next step then is to search just for ‘Ginetta Cars’ and sit back and watch.

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