RE: New Ginetta G60 Road Car Revealed

RE: New Ginetta G60 Road Car Revealed

Author
Discussion

WCZ

10,548 posts

195 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
way too expensive, otherwise a decent car.

RudeDog

1,652 posts

175 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
WCZ said:
way too expensive, otherwise a decent car.
And this is why it attracts criticism rather than praise from me. At £40-45K this car would be a star. At nearly £70K its trying to punch above its weight IMO.

Clivey

5,112 posts

205 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
When will some of you realise? - Car prices have gone up across the board. In 2001, a diesel Focus would have been about £14k (list price) - now it's more like £20k. The same applies for sports cars - The 911S is over £10k more than it was in 2004/5. You cannot buy a lightweight, niche sports car with a 6-cylinder engine and decent looks for £35k any longer.

Lotus list prices are in actual fact very low & good value at the moment! - This Ginetta is actually priced where I'd expect it to be, all things considered. I hope they do well.

kambites

67,643 posts

222 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
PH does sometimes feel like watching a couple of old men moaning about how expensive bread is these days, and how it's only worth ha'penny a loaf because that's what they always used to pay! hehe

toppstuff

13,698 posts

248 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
Clivey said:
When will some of you realise? - Car prices have gone up across the board. In 2001, a diesel Focus would have been about £14k (list price) - now it's more like £20k. The same applies for sports cars - The 911S is over £10k more than it was in 2004/5. You cannot buy a lightweight, niche sports car with a 6-cylinder engine and decent looks for £35k any longer.

Lotus list prices are in actual fact very low & good value at the moment! - This Ginetta is actually priced where I'd expect it to be, all things considered. I hope they do well.
Precisely ! Take the new 911, for example, a well specced 911S is a 90-100k car.

Prices have gone up a lot.

DonkeyApple

55,594 posts

170 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
RJDM3 said:
British hand built, exlusive and only £68,000.00 , i am amazed they can produce it for that price and include a margin.

As for the people who say its to expensive...you really have no idea what it costs to produce a "production" ready vehicle. This is not the late 80's early 90's anymore!
My guess is this is why they have stripped out all the 3rd party tech like ABS etc and used the same marketing line that Wheeler used to that it was all nannying stuff and not for real men. TVR customers bought the line so it clearly works. wink

I've driven the car in its original guise and it is brilliant. I didn't like the positioning of the wheel v seat v gear stick in the original, I couldn't gel with it but apparently this has been one of the things altered.

I would guess that by using a more elementary engine and removing a lot of the costly and also price variable items they will have firstly dropped the price into a more acceptable ballpark and also left themselves with a good margin that makes it worth while.

I also guess that most will be LHD.

What interests me is why stick with CF for the shell. I was under the impression that it is very labour intensive and the raw material costly, so a GRP version would lower the price further and leave room for a mental version down the line at a bigger price? I can only guess that it was a combination of firstly it being good for marketing and maybe more practically the GRP would need to be thicker to have the same rigidity and may have meant re-working the underpinnings as well as being a bit lardy.

kambites

67,643 posts

222 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
DonkeyApple said:
What interests me is why stick with CF for the shell.
Fashion, I think. Manufacturers seem to feel they have to use CF these days even when there are better alternatively available, just because it's the material of the moment.

RudeDog

1,652 posts

175 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
Clivey said:
When will some of you realise? - Car prices have gone up across the board. In 2001, a diesel Focus would have been about £14k (list price) - now it's more like £20k. The same applies for sports cars - The 911S is over £10k more than it was in 2004/5. You cannot buy a lightweight, niche sports car with a 6-cylinder engine and decent looks for £35k any longer.

Lotus list prices are in actual fact very low & good value at the moment! - This Ginetta is actually priced where I'd expect it to be, all things considered. I hope they do well.
UK List Prices:

Lotus Evora - £49,600
Porsche Cayman R - £51,728
Porsche Spyder - £47,843

The market offers us lightweight sports cars with 6-cylinder engines for £20K less than the Ginetta. OK, not quite as niche but hardly on every corner. These cars also have a modicum of technology included in the price, a dealer network and a healthy second hand market. Why does Ginetta think it can command a premium? I don't see what its offering over and above any of the three models I have listed above.

GhostDriver

878 posts

193 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
Was kinda hoping that Ginetta would take up the old Lotus philosophy, and offer something light, cheap and fun.

But then again thought the same about Noble, and look what market they are chasing.

Crossing my fingers the new Caterham will manage it.

kambites

67,643 posts

222 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
RudeDog said:
The market offers us lightweight sports cars with 6-cylinder engines for £20K less than the Ginetta. OK, not quite as niche but hardly on every corner. These cars also have a modicum of technology included in the price, a dealer network and a healthy second hand market. Why does Ginetta think it can command a premium? I don't see what its offering over and above any of the three models I have listed above.
My guess is that what they're planning to offer, is a greatly superior driving experience.

soxboy

6,330 posts

220 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
Lawrence Tomlinson is a very shrewd businessman, he knows that if it wouldn't sell at that price he wouldn't be making it. I would also imagine that having been building cars for a little while now he knows that he cannot physically make it in small numbers and make a little profit by charging less.

A Golf GTi costs £30k these days, this is twice as much. Or 1/3 the price of a Ferrari 458 or Mclaren MP. Almost a bargain to me.

900T-R

20,404 posts

258 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
RudeDog said:
UK List Prices:

Lotus Evora - £49,600
Porsche Cayman R - £51,728
Porsche Spyder - £47,843

The market offers us lightweight sports cars with 6-cylinder engines for £20K less than the Ginetta.
Your definition of 'lightweight' differs somewhat from mine - of that lot, only the Spyder with its tent-for-a-roof comes below 1,300 kgs.


kambites

67,643 posts

222 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
GhostDriver said:
Was kinda hoping that Ginetta would take up the old Lotus philosophy, and offer something light, cheap and fun.
But that never really was the Lotus' long-term philosophy. Sure the S1 Elise was quite cheap for what it offered, but as far as I know, that's really the only cheap car that Lotus have ever produced. Also, with other manufacturers finally starting to jump on the lightweight bandwagon, the market space for specialist cars is probably shrinking.

ETA: And of course that's what the G40 is. So if you want a cheap lightweight Ginetta, there's already one out there for you.

Edited by kambites on Wednesday 5th October 12:33

Chris-R

756 posts

188 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
anonymous said:
[redacted]
It's a welded tubular steel chassis with a cf shell.

ewenm

28,506 posts

246 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
GhostDriver said:
Was kinda hoping that Ginetta would take up the old Lotus philosophy, and offer something light, cheap and fun.

But then again thought the same about Noble, and look what market they are chasing.

Crossing my fingers the new Caterham will manage it.
Caterham already offer that with the 7. I suspect the new Caterham will be in a similar segment to the Ginetta G40R - does that meet your "light, cheap and fun" criteria?

kambites

67,643 posts

222 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
Chris-R said:
It's a welded tubular steel chassis with a cf shell.
Which really does make choosing CF over GRP a very odd decision, from an engineering standpoint, unless the shell is semi-structural. It would be at least 10k cheaper and probably significantly less than 50kg heavier if the body was GRP.

Daniel1

2,931 posts

199 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
its not particularly pretty, has some odd design touches that take away from the overall shape and is serious money.

Not for me, im oot.

RB Will

9,666 posts

241 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
I feel this car falls a bit between categories for me.
It's too expensive and slow to be a dedicated track car but if I were to have a road car that is track focussed I would rather have something like a GT3RS which has a few creature comforts.
Or put in other words. It is not special enough to be a weekend car and not comfortable enough to be a daily driver. I just can't think of a reason to buy one.

Yazza54

18,609 posts

182 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
angusfaldo said:
I also like it, a lot. But I wish Ginetta would do something with their badges. The font they use for the badge reminds me of a low budget 70s metal band's album cover and adds cheapness, imho..
It's retro!!

davo23

318 posts

153 months

Wednesday 5th October 2011
quotequote all
Cooper500 said:
Can't see this taking off and selling in great numbers at all
pistonheads said:
Ginetta plans to build fifty G60s annually