Ginetta chairman to highlight niche car manufacturer plight

LAWRENCE Tomlinson, chairman of Yorkshire-based car manufacturer Ginetta, is to highlight the plight of niche car makers by appearing on national television.

Mr Tomlinson will tell viewers how he feels more can be done to help car manufacturers on home soil when he appears tomorrow evening on ITV1’s ‘Tonight’ programme.

He complains that to date the focus has been on helping the sales of larger foreign manufacturers within the UK with none of the money used in the scrappage scheme being used to aid smaller manufacturers.

“While as a nich manufacturer we’ll never produce the same number of vehicles as Nissan’s Sunderland plant we do have 51 years of British heritage behind us,” he said.

“Surely more UK consumers would buy British if there was a competitive product available for them. With the likes of Rover currently dormant I think we should be championing British manufacturers, on some level. All Ginetta cars are British made on home soil using as much British content as possible.”

Ginetta is also a hot contender in the green-motoring race and is one a a few UK car manufacturers to have a fully working electric car – the Ginetta G50EV.

However, the firm was turned down for a development grant by the Technology Strategy Board earlier this year.

“This was obviously a disappointment. In the Ginetta G50EV we have a fully working electric car that can run for over 200 miles on a full charge – yet we can’t progress it past the prototype stage as we simply don’t have the level of capital needed to bring it to the open market,” said Mr Lawrence.

“With green motoring high on the Government’s agenda I would have hoped they would invest in the existing technology we have pioneered here at Ginetta’s Leeds factory.”

The company is a major player on the motorsport scene in the UK and abroad. Its own three single-make championships are renown for their entertaining close racing and cater for novices and the career-minded alike.

In 2008 Ginetta Cars was awarded the title of ‘Small Business of the Year’ by the Motorsport Industry Association and in June Team LNT raced a Ginetta Zytek GZ09S in the premier LMP1 class at Le Mans.

In September, Nigel Mansell raced a Ginetta-Zytek GZ09S at Silverstone in the Le Mans Series finale with his son Greg and Mr Tomlinson.

Early next year Ginetta will launch its latest road and race car – the Ginetta G40.