{"id":63498,"date":"2021-02-19T16:55:21","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T16:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.secret-classics.com\/?p=63498"},"modified":"2021-03-15T08:19:19","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T08:19:19","slug":"gordon-keeble-gt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.secret-classics.com\/en\/gordon-keeble-gt\/","title":{"rendered":"Gordon-Keeble GT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If there is one country whose automotive history is filled with many small-series manufacturers, it is probably Great Britain. Two of these brands can be found in the following story. In fact, in order to get to know the rare Gordon-Keeble GT, it’s necessary to mention its backstory. Or have you ever heard of this classic car? Probably not. So it’s time to take a closer look at this sports coup\u00e9. For this, we go back to the mid-1950s. John Gordon and James Byrnes founded their own sports car company Peerless and had Bernie Rodger design a car. This was called ‘Warwick’ as a prototype, but was simply renamed Peerless for the start of production in 1957. The engine of the Triumph TR3 was housed in an indepently designed tubular frame chassis made of rectangular tubes. A four-seater GRP body was built around it. About 325 examples were built up to 1960.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Peerless to Gordon GT<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One of the Peerless founders, John Gordon, secured the rights to the tubular frame chassis. Together with Jim Keeble, he set about developing a new sports car on this basis. This was preceded by a request from US Air Force pilot Nielsen, who asked for a V8 installed into his Peerless. For their own car, the Gordon GT, they originally envisaged a 3.5-liter V8 engine from Buick. However, as development work progressed, they swung to a Chevrolet V8 for a variety of reasons. Initially, it was to be the 4.6-liter powerplant from the Corvette, but ultimately they ended up with the 5.4-liter V8. The chassis consisted of an independent suspension with two unequal-length triangular wishbones at the front and a De-Dion-axle with four trailing arms at the rear. To keep the power in check, the car received disc brakes all around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Design by Giugiaro at Bertone<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For the body design, Gordon and Keeble turned to the Italian design house Bertone. A certain Giorgetto Giugiaro was working there at the time. He created an elegant coup\u00e9 with four five-inch round headlights and small tail fins with integrated taillights. For the first prototype, these shapes were created from sheet steel in just 27 days. For cost reasons, however, the company decided to produce the customer cars from fiberglass-reinforced plastic. For this purpose, they teamed up with the small coachbuilder Williams & Pritchard Limited. The Gordon GT made its debut on the Bertone stand at the 1960 Geneva Motor Show. After a few test and development drives, some even with journalists behind the wheel, the car was shipped to the USA to be demonstrated to the Chevrolet board. The latter finally agreed to supply the engines and transmissions.<\/p>\n\n\n

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