Gilbern Chevy GT
Discussion
In 2019 I purchased a Gilbern GT that had been off the road for 40+ years and rebuilt it over the course of 12 months for circuit racing, I subsequently secured FIA papers and I have been racing this GT pretty regularly over the last couple of years.
I have just purchased another GT but with a difference, this one has a small block Chevy having been built at the factory as a one off in 1965. Apparently local racer, Ken Wilson, turned up at the factory one day with the V8 in his boot and set Gilbern the challenge of fitting it into a new GT. They rose to the challenge.
Wilson owned a number of cars including a BRM P48, a Lotus 30 and an ex Le Mans Lister/Jag. This put the Gilbern Chevy GT in pretty good company however the Gilbern "works" driver, Peter Cottrell, described Ken as an accident waiting to happen. Both Peter and Ken competed in the Gilbern Chevy GT, Ken doing mostly sprints/hill-climbs and Peter circuit racing.
Information on the Gilbern Chevy GT is reported in several books and indeed it is also reported that the Chevy engine may have been lost after Ken put it in his boat! The car was later used at Ace Motors as a garage hack, ownership then became blurred until it was tracked down and purchased by the Gilbern Owners Club chairman.
My plan is to get it back on the track, I am collecting it this week and I should have it race ready for the spring next year. With my previous GT I ran a thread to track the progress of restoration and my first few races, I will do the same with this GT.
A few pictures of Ken in period and the car as it stands now:
I have just purchased another GT but with a difference, this one has a small block Chevy having been built at the factory as a one off in 1965. Apparently local racer, Ken Wilson, turned up at the factory one day with the V8 in his boot and set Gilbern the challenge of fitting it into a new GT. They rose to the challenge.
Wilson owned a number of cars including a BRM P48, a Lotus 30 and an ex Le Mans Lister/Jag. This put the Gilbern Chevy GT in pretty good company however the Gilbern "works" driver, Peter Cottrell, described Ken as an accident waiting to happen. Both Peter and Ken competed in the Gilbern Chevy GT, Ken doing mostly sprints/hill-climbs and Peter circuit racing.
Information on the Gilbern Chevy GT is reported in several books and indeed it is also reported that the Chevy engine may have been lost after Ken put it in his boat! The car was later used at Ace Motors as a garage hack, ownership then became blurred until it was tracked down and purchased by the Gilbern Owners Club chairman.
My plan is to get it back on the track, I am collecting it this week and I should have it race ready for the spring next year. With my previous GT I ran a thread to track the progress of restoration and my first few races, I will do the same with this GT.
A few pictures of Ken in period and the car as it stands now:
Turbobanana said:
The track looks as wide as the wheelbase is long - I assume it's a little "twitchy"?
Good luck OP. We followed your other build with interest; keep up the good work with this one.
At the moment the car is sitting on 14's which look very odd in the extended arches. Apparently it ran with 15's originally on wheels taken from a BRM, I have not been able to find an archive photo showing the wheels stationary but I think they would have been like these:Good luck OP. We followed your other build with interest; keep up the good work with this one.
The Chevy GT is now back from the paint shop and I have moved on to the mechanicals.
The first challenge has been to find the right position for the engine. Having lost the original, and in the absence of any engine bay period pictures, it has been a question of finding the best solution for height, left/right orientation and front/back. Having tried various positions I think I have now found the best compromise and this has required fabrication of brackets for the chassis/engine mounts and repositioning of the mount for the box. I have managed to get the rams horn manifolds on but not suitably lining up for pipe connections. Space is very tight. Work continues.
The first challenge has been to find the right position for the engine. Having lost the original, and in the absence of any engine bay period pictures, it has been a question of finding the best solution for height, left/right orientation and front/back. Having tried various positions I think I have now found the best compromise and this has required fabrication of brackets for the chassis/engine mounts and repositioning of the mount for the box. I have managed to get the rams horn manifolds on but not suitably lining up for pipe connections. Space is very tight. Work continues.
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