THE ORIGINAL G

Ginetta's motorsport know-how is respected globally, but street-legal models remain rare. Richard Lane straps in to the company's latest wild creation, the G56 GTR, while Steve Cropley catches up with the boss who signed it off

- Richard Lane

Many moons ago, Steve Sutcliffe, erstwhile editor of this magazine, had a go in Nick Mason's McLaren F1 GTR, aka chassis #10R. It was 2009, and the subsequent YouTube video (1.2 million views and counting) remains one of the best there is for conveying the violence that separates proper racing cars made road-legal from the comparatively tame track-day toys that big OEMS spin from polite mainline models.

There's a moment three minutes in when the acid response of the Mac's 6.1-litre V12 to Steve's gratuitous downshifting via the car's sequential 'box would be frightening were it not so glorious.

I mention this only because a blue coupé with a sardonic grin, and whose yoke I'm now tucked behind, is giving off a similar vibe to the F1 in Sutters' ear-popping video. It's not quite on the Mac's level but is still unforgettably feral.

Not far from Leeds is the HQ for Ginetta Cars, the company that produces this pint-sized road racer, also dubbed 'GTR'. Its wildness makes sense when you consider that Ginetta is first and foremost a motorsport specialist. Over the years its cars have afforded plenty of rising talent a vital first taste of real racing. This includes F1 star Lando Norris, who still raves about his 100bhp but oh-so sweet-handling G40 Junior.

At the other end of Ginetta's broad motorsport capability is the extraterrestrial G60-LT-P1 - a homegrown, top-tier prototype built to take on Toyota at Le Mans at the tail end of the LMP1 era. The G60 really did have the aerodynamic package to display some giantslaying performance, as demonstrated by its pace through Porsche Curves. Alas, the V6 wasn't potent enough elsewhere. Today the G60 sits in the atrium at Ginetta's HQ, next to a tiny 1965 G10 roadster. As bookends to the company's historical output, they are a striking pair.