Fall 2020— another online auction, Andy calls Mike, “I think I’m in real trouble…”
A very special car. And so the journey continues…
Founded in 1958 by the four Walklett brothers in the UK, Ginetta has a long and successful history of producing hand-built road and race cars.
Many are familiar with the more common G4 originally built as a road car though successfully campaigned as a sports racer with over 500 produced.
Some have had the pleasure to have seen its successor, the dominating G12 of which 28 were built. Then came the G16…
The 1st of 7 G16s was built for the US Ginetta Importer Arthur Allen.
In 1968, the car was shipped to Ginetta dealer Arthur Allen in Los Angeles Ca.
Originally spec’ed with a 2-lire Climax engine it was raced in SCCA events mostly on the west coast until 1970 when the car is known to have been involved in an incident at Laguna Seca where it was heavily damaged.
In 1987, the car was purchased by Trevor Needham, a Ginetta race driver and specialist ;
Trevor rebuilt the car and installed a Lester Owen 2.0 litre BMW M10 known for being extremely reliable for Endurance racing. The car was campaigned in the International Supersports Cup in Europe from 1992 – 1997.
In 1999, Lawrence Neviaser returned G16/001 to the US, the only G16 this side of the pond…
Larry ran the car out of his shop Vintage Motorsport of Connecticut in various vintage events around the country including the Reunion at Laguna Seca, Watkins Glen, Mid Ohio, VIR, Mont Tremblant and The Mitty. Ginetta’s G16 perennially punched above its class and over the years has run with both small bore and big bore classes
against makes such as McLaren, Lola, Chevron, Brabham, Lotus, Elva, Royale, Merlyn, Ford and Porsche cars amongst others.
In racing sometimes bad things happen, this Sports Racer has seen its share of “incidents”.
In 2013, the car was involved in a significant incident at Watkins Glen, Larry decided it was time to retire from racing… but not until his G16 was back together, A frame up restoration was in order, including new bodywork and support provided by Tom Walklett of Ginetta. After the car was repaired Larry prominently placed it in a local museum
Eventually he realized it was the time to let his girl go…back to the track.
In 2020, Dwight “Andy” Anderson added the car to the Palomar Racing stable.
A fitting stop on the very special cars journey. She came home to California where she had originally begun her career 50 years ago. The car will be campaigned on the Vintage circuit, no doubt returning to tracks she has run before. The livery has been updated in order to bring the back the original #6 run by Art Allen Now badged as the #06 we look forward to adding to the storied history of this sexy beast.
