Ginetta G60

Scope of this guide

This guide is scoped to the Ginetta G60 road car, the two-seat, mid-engine, rear-wheel drive coupe with a 3.7L naturally aspirated V6 petrol (Ford Cyclone) that Ginetta built in Yorkshire from 2012. It is not a guide to the G60-LT-P1 Le Mans prototype, which shares the name but is a race car, to Ginetta's other racing cars, or to the earlier Farbio GTS and Ginetta F400 that the G60 grew out of. Where an advert says only "Ginetta G60" it is worth asking which of those it means.

We have not driven this model for this article. Everything here comes from three cited sources: evo's launch report of 5 October 2011, PistonHeads' launch report of 5 October 2011, and the government recall checker. We also read evo's road test of 16 December 2011, PistonHeads' first drive of 17 October 2011, PistonHeads' report on the first customer delivery of 26 March 2012, an Autoblog report of 7 October 2011, a PistonHeads forum thread from 2016 and a PistonHeads forum post of January 2019, and Wikipedia. We flag every point that rests on those secondary pages, and where sources disagree we say so rather than choosing quietly. Prices are history, not valuations.

The figures at a glance

• Engine: 3.7L naturally aspirated V6 petrol (Ford Cyclone), 3727 cc, mounted behind the seats. It is a development of the unit Ginetta used in its G55 and GT3 racing cars, and Autoblog describes it as sourced from the Ford Mustang.
• Power: 310 bhp at 6,500 rpm. Wikipedia converts this to 314 PS.
• Torque: 390 Nm at 4,500 rpm. The sources print 288 lb ft, and 288 x 1.3558 is about 390 Nm, which is our own conversion and the figure Wikipedia also prints.
• 0-100 km/h: the sources give only a claimed 0-60 mph time of 4.9 seconds, so there is no true 0-100 km/h figure. We use 4.9 seconds as the closest published number, and a real 0-62 mph time would be a little longer.
• Top speed: 165 mph, about 265 km/h, and it was a claim, not a measured run that we found.
• Drive: rear-wheel drive through a six-speed manual gearbox with a limited-slip differential. PistonHeads calls it an Automatic Torque Biasing differential.
• Weight: 1,080 kg kerb weight, the figure given by evo, PistonHeads and Wikipedia.

Where the G60 came from

The car did not start as a Ginetta. PistonHeads says the shape began about a decade before the launch as the Farboud GTS, created by Arash Farboud, was taken on by a new owner as the Farbio GTS, and was bought by Ginetta owner Lawrence Tomlinson in 2010 and renamed the F400. PistonHeads and evo both say the G60 rebuilt the car from the ground up, keeping the bodywork largely unchanged. Our research notes suggested the G60 was a sibling of the Ginetta G50, but none of the sources we read says so. Wikipedia lists the G50 only as an earlier Ginetta model. We therefore describe the G60 as the end of the Farbio and F400 line, not a G50 derivative.

The first customer car went to a buyer in Bavaria, according to PistonHeads on 26 March 2012. The same report says only three road-registered G60s existed at that point and that two of them belonged to Ginetta. The report notes that the car's gestation had been "protracted to say the least", a useful reminder that early cars were hand-built in very small numbers.

What the car is made of

PistonHeads says the G60 has a new, stiffer tubular steel chassis with carbon fibre bodywork, and that the carbon fibre cooling vents and a revised splitter were added for aerodynamics. Wikipedia describes a carbon fibre skin on a tubular steel chassis and also mentions a carbon fibre tub, which PistonHeads and evo do not. We could not settle that point, so ask the seller what the structure is.

The suspension is double wishbones with coil springs at both ends and aluminium billet uprights. The brakes are Alcon four-piston calipers with grooved and drilled 356 mm by 32 mm front and 355 mm by 28 mm rear discs. The wheels are 19 inch alloys with Michelin Pilot Sport 3 tyres, 235/35 ZR19 at the front and 285/35 ZR19 at the rear. Those are the launch specification, and we have not seen a service manual or parts list, so check what is fitted to the car in front of you.

No driver aids

The G60 was sold with a deliberate lack of electronics. PistonHeads says the servo brakes, power-assisted steering, ABS and traction control were all removed, and evo quotes Ginetta's own phrase "nanny aids". The steering is an unassisted rack and pinion. For an owner that means heavier controls, more effort at low speed and no electronic safety net on a wet road. It also means fewer sensors and modules to fail, but we have no evidence about reliability either way.

Inside, the sources describe a simple, well-made cabin with Alcantara trim, bucket seats and a carbon steering wheel, plus a centrally mounted 7 inch touchscreen that handles satellite navigation, Bluetooth, audio and climate control. PistonHeads called the interior more of a workspace than a club lounge. Touchscreen software from 2011 is the kind of thing that can be hard to repair today, so test every function.

How it drove when new

Both magazines drove pre-production or early cars, so treat their comments as a snapshot. PistonHeads, on 17 October 2011, found the car quick on British A and B roads, though not at the level of a McLaren or a Noble, and praised the steering feedback and the chassis's composure over bumps. The test car lacked a new steering arm and a lower-effort brake master cylinder, so the steering was tiring and the pedal was hard.

evo's road test of 16 December 2011 liked the engine's clean throttle response, found the unassisted brakes easy to adapt to, and judged the steering heavy at larger angles. It called the ride firm and jittery on bumpy roads, found turn-in slightly reluctant and said straight-line stability suggested more track than road development. Its verdict was that the 310 bhp V6 gave the styling the performance to match, but that the car did not yet feel finished. Later cars may have improved, and we have no source that says either way.

Why the quoted performance varies

Three numbers deserve care. First, 4.9 seconds is a manufacturer claim for 0-60 mph. At the launch, Autoblog reported "under four seconds" and Autocar's launch coverage, as summarised in search results we saw but could not open, reported a sub-4.0 second claim, so early material was more optimistic than the later figure. Second, the 165 mph top speed is also described as "in excess of" that value in some early reports. Third, the power-to-weight figures disagree: PistonHeads printed 305.6 bhp per tonne and evo printed 292, while 310 bhp divided by 1,080 kg is about 287. None of this changes the car's character, but it shows why we would trust a documented result on the car you are buying over any brochure number.

Price, production and the end of the run

The launch price was 68,000 pounds, and both PistonHeads and evo said Ginetta planned to build fifty cars a year for global sale. Evo gave a February 2012 start for customer deliveries, whereas PistonHeads' first drive said March. Autoblog and Wikipedia describe a run of 50 examples in total, and Wikipedia says about 50 were built between 2012 and 2015 and that Ginetta ended production in November 2015, citing poor sales and costs that had become prohibitive. That statement rests on a Road & Track article we could not open, so we only report it second hand. A PistonHeads forum post from January 2019 says the G60 was "canned after just 50 were made". A year-by-year build list does not seem to be published, so treat 50 as an approximate total, not an audited count.

A 2016 thread in the PistonHeads Ginetta forum discussed what looked like a G60 project car for sale. It is opinion and speculation from members and says nothing verified about the factory's plans, so we do not rely on it beyond showing that the car's future was already in question.

What to check before buying

• Ask for the chassis number, build date and owner history, and ask Ginetta whether it holds records for the car. We could not find any official statement about what support Ginetta now offers for the road G60.
• Confirm the car is a road-registered G60 and not a development car, a prototype or a track conversion. With only about 50 built, provenance matters more than mileage.
• Inspect the carbon fibre body and splitter for cracks, repairs and paint mismatch, and look underneath for damage to the tubular steel chassis.
• Test the unassisted brakes and steering for effort and noise, and ask when the discs, pads and fluid were last changed.
• Check engine history. We did not find a published service schedule, and we have not established which parts are shared with other cars that use the Ford V6, so ask a specialist before assuming anything.
• Check that the touchscreen, sat-nav and climate controls work.
• Arrange an independent inspection by someone who has worked on low-volume British sports cars, because there is no large dealer network to fall back on.

Recalls and the DVSA check

We did not run the government checker, because we are not looking at a specific car. The page says that for a car you can check safety recalls and MOT history with the registration number, and that if you have no registration you need the manufacturer, model and year of manufacture. It says results show safety recalls that have not yet been checked or fixed, and that for a car the manufacturer notifies the owner directly about a recall that is not for safety reasons.

For a low-volume car like the G60 that has limits. A clean result tells you only that no safety recall has been logged against that registration or make, model and year. It does not tell you about crash repairs, carbon fibre damage, engine work, missing service history or whether a car was built to the same specification as the launch cars. A car that was imported, or sold abroad such as the first customer car, may not be matched at all. We found no recall notice for the G60 in any source we read, and absence from our sources is not a clean bill of health. Also ask Ginetta directly whether any service bulletin applies.

About the photograph

The picture at the top of this page shows an orange G60 at the 2014 Goodwood Festival of Speed, taken by Michelin LIVE UK and licensed CC BY 2.0 on Wikimedia Commons. We cropped it, resized it and blurred the number plate. We have not confirmed whether it is a production car or a factory demonstrator, so use it only to show the shape.

Verdict

The Ginetta G60 in this guide is a 310 bhp, 390 Nm, mid-engine, rear-wheel drive coupe with a claimed 4.9 seconds to 60 mph and a claimed 165 mph, about 265 km/h, built in a run of roughly fifty cars and sold with no ABS, no power steering and no traction control. It is a rare, raw and lightly documented British sports car whose paperwork and condition matter more than its headline numbers. If you are shopping for one, confirm the provenance, get a specialist inspection, check the carbon and chassis and use the recall check as a starting point and not a certificate. We have not driven it, so rely on the sources and a proper inspection to decide.