Ginetta G15
During my ownership of the Ginetta G15 I acquired all the books about Ginetta & the G15, increasing my knowledge of the Marque. One interesting aspect of the Ginetta G15 was that it was banned from circuit racing for wining too many races. Quite an achievement when you consider the race cars were very similar to the road cars. It must have been very satisfying beating sports cars such as the 4.2 litre Jaguar E Type.
As I have previously described the Ginetta G15 was very much a realistic race car for the road. With its pedals very close together, this design feature added to the race car feel & to the precision required when driving the car.
I suppose this car started an interest & a passion for Hillman Imp Engined cars. More of this later when I discuss my Sunbeam Stiletto. Back in the day I did look at the Davrian, Clan Crusader & Irish Clan’s for sale but never took the plunge for ownership. I also enjoyed watching the Imp variants Hillclimbing & Sprinting in my spare time.
Unfortunately the last chapter in my ownership of my Ginetta G15 998cc was not a happy one. Driving home from work one day, I decided to take to the country lanes, a frequent choice to be honest. The engine started to misfire quite badly so I stopped at the side of the road, close to the underside of a Motorway bridge. I went to the rear of the car & opened the rear hinged back of the car, with the special T-piece tool. As soon as I did this a blast of flames shot out from the engine area, the car had caught fire & was spreading very fast, with the car body made entirely from glass fibre, the lesson that glass-fibre cars do indeed burn was etched in my memory. I did not have a fire extinguisher, a schoolboy error at the time, with the fire quickly moving over the entire body. All I could do was retreat rather quickly & watch my pride & joy go up in flames, literally. Within a minute or so, the horn came on continuously & just stayed on, followed by each tyre in turn exploding one after the other.
A passing motorist called the fire brigade, yep mobile phones were non-existent in those days! By the time the fire brigade arrived all that was left was the square section ladder frame chassis & suspension. Anything Aluminium simply melted, so pretty much all of the engine & transaxle was destroyed in the fire.
My insurance covered the cost of the car, however in reality the car was irreplaceable due to the low numbers produced. When I went back to look at the damage to the road a few days later there was a 2 inch deep recess in the road surface where my car died.
Maybe something evil happened that day to my Ginetta G15 I don’t know. The damaged road was resurfaced, quite badly & every time I passed over this area of road it would bring back good memories of my ownership, except for its last day on Earth!
Because the car was effectively written off, the number plate can never be used on another car. Yes I have tried to reclaim this registration number. My next cars were all steel bodied, probably as I was then a little worried about the possibilities of fire. Since that time in my fiery car ownership I have not had one fire to this date, touch wood.
