Bob, Ivor, Trevers and Douglas Walklett founded Ginetta in 1958 at Woodbridge in Suffolk, and their first car used Ford 10 mechanical parts. The company moved to Witham in Essex in 1962, and spent short spells at Sudbury, Suffolk, in the early 1970s before returning to Witham.
Many early Ginettas were sold in kit form to avoid purchase tax. The G4 of the early 1960s was a light, glass-fibre sports car that was successful in club racing and was revived in 1981, and the Hillman Imp-engined G15, of which around 800 were built between 1967 and 1974, was the company’s best-selling road car. Later models included the G27.
Ginetta moved to Scunthorpe in 1988, and the Walklett brothers sold the company in 1989. In 2005 businessman and racing driver Lawrence Tomlinson bought Ginetta through LNT Automotive and moved it to Garforth, near Leeds, turning it into a builder of racing cars and modern road cars such as the G40, G55 and G60. Ginetta’s one-make junior series have given many young British racing drivers their start.
