Taking the EZ option

A new electric car could form part of Ginetta’s plans to gain a foothold in the road car market

It’s patently a question he’s been asked more than once. “Everyone thinks it’s f****** easy,” laughs Richard Dean, “but making road cars is a lot more difficult than you think. On a racing car you don’t worry so much about shut lines, rain channels or whether or not it has Bluetooth connection.”

So will Ginetta return seriously to making road-going sports cars? “We’ve got a few ideas but we’ve got to pick the right car and launch it when the climate is right,” he says. “There’s no point in us announcing a £100K supercar while the economy is the way it is. We have a G50 road car which is quite advanced. We’ve added a boot – the racing car doesn’t have one – and made sure we can house two bags of golf clubs and so on, but there has to be a business case put forward before we progress much further. Do we do a stripped out racer-style car or park it next to Laurence’s Bentley and try and match it?”

Altogether more intriguing is the electric G50 EZ (pictured above and below). Built in just three months, it’s surprisingly rapid (we know, we tried it) and could, conceivably, reach production or form part of another one-make series. “We have long-term aims,” says Dean, “and an affordable sports car in a similar style to the G20 is a possibility, but for now you’ll have to wait and see…”