"Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)" (thejonnyedge)
03/01/2014 at 09:28 Filed to: HISTORY, GILBERN, WALES, St. David's Day
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"Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)" (thejonnyedge)
03/01/2014 at 09:28 Filed to: HISTORY, GILBERN, WALES, St. David's Day | 7
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Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus! Happy St. David's Day! Today is the day the people of Wales celebrate their national day. An immensely proud nation, the people of Wales will sing the national anthem, eat their national dish and generally celebrate all things Welsh. Having lived in Wales for 4 years as a youngster and spent many summer's day at the Anglesey Circuit, I have decided to share a little Welsh story with you all. This is the story of Gilbern sports cars.
The year is 1959 and local butcher Giles Smith purely by chance, has just met a former German POW by the name of Bernard Friese. Friese had plenty of experience with glass fibre mouldings and had made his own personal car based on this production method. Smith had wanted his own glass fibre special prior to meeting Friese and was very interested in Friese's car and production background, so he managed to persuade him to work with him on building a new car totally from scratch.
In a large out building behind the back of the butchers, the two men began work on their car. As the car neared completion, the well respected local amateur racing driver Peter Cottrell was requested to view and inspect the car. It was made exceptionally well and it was decided that there was production potential for the partners' car. Combining the first three letters of Giles Smith's name and the first four letters of Bernard Friese's the car company was founded under the name of Gilbern, and it's first car was known as the Gilbern GT.
Cottrell himself ordered the second car, and the two partners continued to make a futher 3-4 cars in the out building behind the butchers before moving to a new location at the site of the old Red Ash Colliery in nearby Llantwit Fardre. The first cars made were all based around the mechanical workings of an Austin A35, but came with a choice of engines either supercharged, or a Coventry Climax (known famously for their work in F1) 1.1l engine. Later in the GT's life they used MG engines from the MGA and then the 1.8l from the MGB. With the coming of the latter, the car was renamed as the GT1800 which you can see in the picture above. All cars were originally supplied as a kit but were very nearly finished, the new owner had to fit the engine and gearbox, back axle, wheels, exhaust system and various minor trim components. All components were supplied with the warranty from the original manufacturer. 280 GT's were made between 1959 and 1967, by which time the GT had a successor.
At the 1966 London Motor Show Gilbern unveiled a larger more advanced model named the 'Genie'. 197 of these cars were made over three years, and featured v6 engines from Ford. This was really quite different from the GT, mechanically now based on the MG MGB a true British sports car, and the V6 gave the car much more power. Gilbern looked like it had intent to become a serious sports car manufacturer. However, as with many small car companies this was not to be.
Up to around 1968 Smith and Friese had managed to keep the company going fairly well, but they were consistently short of money. In April of 1968 the company was taken over by the ACE group. ACE had a variety of business interests and were most known for manufacturing one armed bandit slot machines. The group had enough financial backing to expand the company, but for Smith the magic had gone and he left the company. Friese followed him just one year later. Despite the expansion, no increase in production ever occurred, and from this point onwards Gilbern never again made profit.
Gilbern's final car was the 'Invader'. Introduced in 1969, the Invader was essentially a Genie with a reworked chassis, but this caused more problems than anything else and the car was criticized in the press for suffering from poor handling. To correct the problems with the first generation of Invaders, Gilbern came out with the Mk.2 at the 1970 London Motor Show. The Mk.2 had an improved front chassis design and was even available as a shooting brake, deliveries of which would take place early in 1971. A Mk.3 was later developed with some changes once again, which was most notable for being Gilbern's only car to be sold fully built. In 1971, Gilbern also worked on a project known as the T11 which was to be a rear-engined two seater sports car with a radical wedge shaped designed by Trevor Fiore. The plan was to show this car at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show, but the project was recalled. As you can see in the picture below, it was quite a departure from the existing Gilbern shape. Only 1 was ever made.
With the advent of VAT in the UK, the savings that could be made from buying Gilbern's cars in component form and building them yourself were now lost, and as 90% of sales were generated this way, the only Welsh car company in existence was in trouble, and a Gilbern would now cost a customer around the same price as a Jaguar XJ6 or a BMW 2002. Investors began pulling out and debts started to mount, and in March of 1974, Gilbern closed down for the final time. Over their 15 year history Gilbern manufactured 1,005 cars.
In the present day, the Gilbern owners club has around 450 members and many of them compete in hillclimb challenges across the UK, allowing the public to see one of the few Welsh made cars take to the hills. I give full credit to their excellent website for providing much of the history and background on this article and also providing some of the images. You can learn about Gilbern too at their website gilbern.co.uk. I shall leave you with a couple of Gilbern hillclimb videos driven by Jon Plowe, and a short list of other Welsh born people who have been important in the automotive world. Happy St. David's Day!
Other selected Welsh nationals in the world of motor racing:
Tom Pryce- The only Welshman to qualify in pole posistion in Formula 1, and only Welshman to lead a Formula 1 race. Both at the 1975 British Grand Prix.
Nicky Grist- Most famous for being Colin McRae's co-driver. Won 21 rallies with more than one driver including Juha Kankkunen and Malcolm Wilson
David Richards- Chairman of Prodrive, and former team principle of both BAR and Benetton F1 teams amongst many other achievements. Awarded a CBE for services to motorsport .
Phil Mills- World Champion rally co-driver with Petter Solberg in 2003.
Elfyn Evans- Current WRC driver. Finished 6th at the Monte Carlo Rally this year.
gmctavish needs more space
> Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
03/01/2014 at 10:41 |
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Great writeup, I didn't know anything about Gilbern until now. I think the extent of my knowledge was they made something called the Invader, which was at least as cool as the Interceptor
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Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
> gmctavish needs more space
03/01/2014 at 10:43 |
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Thanks very much! I kind of like how they just started as a couple of guys just at the back of their shop. Gives you hope that some day you can achieve your dreams, whatever it is. If a couple of guys can build a car behind a butchers and go on to make production, it gives you a lot of hope. The title picture is a Mk.2 Invader I think, which is a fabulous name for a car.
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gmctavish needs more space
> Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
03/01/2014 at 10:45 |
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Yeah I mean when you compare it to other car makers, it's "only" a thousand cars, but it's a thousand more cars than most people make :p
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Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
> gmctavish needs more space
03/01/2014 at 10:49 |
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Exactly, and it all started in a shed at the back of a butchers. It's quite inspiring. You just need to want to do something, and when you do it can grow given the right conditions. Hard work really does pay off. It's a great story, I've not talked about every detail, I tried to keep it short and an easy read.
The Gilbern website goes into much more detail.
Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh
> Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
03/01/2014 at 11:03 |
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Nice writeup, better than the one I did last year that's for sure. And it's awesome to see that I'm not the only one on Oppo that know about Gilbern.
If I ever win the lottery, one of the first things I'll do is to find myself a MkIII Invader.
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Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
> Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh
03/01/2014 at 11:07 |
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Thank you Andy! Can I have a read of your piece? Can you link me?
They certainly look like fun cars to drive from what I've seen of them. They go for about £6-7k don't they? Not bad for a manufacturer that probably has less than 900 examples remaining!
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Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh
> Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
03/01/2014 at 11:11 |
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Mine was more a collection of links if I'm honest, Travis (or was it Raph?) wanted to link it to the FP at some point, but I never got around to rewrite it to an actual article.
http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/a-car-from-wal
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The Invaders aren't that expensive, but since I live in Norway it's a bit of a hassle to have the steeringwheel on the right side.
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Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh
> Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
03/01/2014 at 11:14 |
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Biturbo228 did a very short thing on an Invader Estate before I wrote my stuff, and THEDAILYTURISMO have written about Gilbern as well.
BITURBO228 http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/so-wales-made-
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THEDAILYTURISMO http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/ye-olde-welsh-
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
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Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
> Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh
03/01/2014 at 11:23 |
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Lovely, cheers. I did this purely for St David's Day! I thought it was a good opportunity to tell the story, I don't know if this one will get shared to the front page as I think my writing style isn't the most gripping but we'll wait and see!
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Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh
> Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
03/01/2014 at 11:34 |
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I'm pretty sure it'll end up on "best of oppo", so there is a fair chance it'll be on the FP.
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Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
> Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh
03/01/2014 at 11:36 |
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That would be cool, I love writing here. I try to write something different or bring something new. I've been lucky as I've featured quite a lot in Best of Oppo since I joined so I must be doing something right!
It's a bit of a shame articles are pushed down so quick by the sheer number of posts. I'm sure I've missed good things and people have missed my things as a result of the high number of posts.
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Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
> Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
03/02/2014 at 14:56 |
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Another nice little video of a Gilbern here that's well worth a quick viewing.
BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
> Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
03/04/2014 at 19:04 |
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Love these things. There's a shooting brake one that popped up a couple of times for sale. I'd love to get that, swap in an admittedly ubiquitous Rover V8 and go hooning around :)
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Jonny Edge (@thejonnyedge)
> BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
03/04/2014 at 19:19 |
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If you could buy one as a project and slowly get more and more modern mechanicals in it then I think it would probably be a very good car indeed!