Ginetta (
www.ginetta.com), a specialist manufacturer of racing and sports cars based in the Garforth district of Leeds, has revealed its latest prototype model — the G57.
The company, which is owned by Yorkshire-born entrepreneur Lawrence Tomlinson, says that the G57 is “eligible for sports-car competition across the globe” and has a Chevrolet LS3 engine with 580bhp. It is expected to debut in several global sports-car series next year.
Mr Tomlinson said that the launch of the G57 follows the success of Team LNT and its Ginetta-Nissan sports-car in the European Le Mans Series driver and teams championship — it won every race this season.
He said: “The Le Mans Series has provided the perfect platform to further introduce the Ginetta brand to the European market-place, and we worked closely with the French racing drivers’ club to ensure that both the car and the series were successful.
“As a business, we must now continue towards our goal of increasing our exports, which inevitably means creating a new and significantly faster car that is eligible for competition on a number of different global platforms.”
Mr Tomlinson trained as an engineer at Huddersfield Technical College and worked at the Holset turbo-charger company during his early career. He is now chairman of Leeds-based LNT Group, which comprises Ideal Care Homes, LNT Construction, LNT Software, LNT Solutions and Ginetta.
The latter has been building road and race cars since 1958 and is one of the few remaining British sports-car manufacturers. Purchased by Mr Tomlinson in 2005, the company produces about 200 hand-built cars a year for customers world-wide.