Your first look at the all‑new Ginetta supercar

The car, as yet unnamed, is revealed here today a week ahead of its public unveiling at the Geneva Motor Show where, it is said, it will be displayed as a running prototype ahead of a limited production run of 20 cars starting in 2020, priced around £400,000 each.

“I have felt for a long time there was a gap in the market at around the £400k price point for a genuinely low production number supercar, with proper craftsmanship and true race derived know-how and technology,” says Ginetta chairman and former Le Mans winner Lawrence Tomlinson.

Ginetta’s most ambitious road car in its 61-year history is very much Tomlinson’s car, a bespoke machine the majority of which is built in-house. Tomlinson has guided it from clean-sheet design through development and testing to marketing – and the company claims that 12 of the first batch of cars are already sold.

The fastest, most powerful and capable road-legal Ginetta ever takes a very different path from most of its conventionally mid-engined competition, and not just in the looks department. The engine is positioned under that long and low bonnet but it’s so far back in the chassis – virtually in the cabin – that the car can claim to be mid-engined, as evidenced by weight distribution of 49 per  cent front, 51 rear.

Apart from displaying characteristic Ginetta individuality in its styling, the layout allows for an aero package to parallel that of Ginetta’s LMP3 race cars. There’s 376kg of downforce achieved at 100mph without the use of any active aero components. The two-seater’s layout has another bonus: a class-best boot with 675 litres of luggage room. With the big boot and lots of cabin creature comforts, Ginetta says its supercar will be as at home grand touring as it will be on a track.

But it’s track-day fun where the car is expected to come into its own, as you would expect of a race car manufacturer and a brand with a heritage of high-power, low-weight road and race cars which, over the decades, have forged Ginetta’s reputation as something of a giant-killer.

The engine is Ginetta’s own, a 6.0-litre naturally-aspirated V8 with a block milled from a solid billet of aluminium. There are no turbos here – for maximum engine response – and the engine is dry sumped. It’s hooked up to one thing Ginetta doesn’t make itself: a bought-in but bespoke six-speed sequential transmission that sends power via a carbon propshaft to a Torsen limited slip differential at rear wheels.

Power – more than 600bhp with 700Nm (516lb ft) of torque – and a dry weight of 1150kg combine with the aero to make an “utterly capable” drivers’ car, says Ginetta. The car has ABS brakes and traction control but stops short of other stability aids, saying the immediacy of engine response is enough to balance the car on the throttle.

We don’t yet have any performance figures but with a power-to-weight ratio of 545bhp per tonne it should clearly be well into supercar territory, with a 200mph top end. For a car a little larger than a Porsche 911 or a McLaren 720S, at 4,640mm long, 2,000m wide and 1,290mm tall, its low weight is impressive, especially given the car’s luxury side. Both the monocoque and the body panels are carbon-fibre, and there’s an integrated carbon roll-cage built to FIA standards.

The chassis is bespoke to this car as is the adjustable pushrod-activated double wishbone suspension, as used in Ginetta’s LMP1 car. Even the race-style centre-lock alloy wheels (19-inches up front, 20-inches at the rear) are designed and manufactured in-house. The steering is hydraulic power-assisted with an LMP1-inspired carbon-fibre steering wheel, and there are 360mm carbon-ceramic discs all round.

The cabin promises a mix of Alcantara, carbon-fibre and milled aluminium trim. The seats are moulded into the carbon tub, with the seating position tailored for the driver via an adjustable floor-mounted pedal box. Cabin features include reversing camera, automatic headlights, parking sensors, air conditioning, satnav, heated screens front and rear and wireless phone charging.

Ginetta chairman Lawrence Tomlinson, who is due to confirm the car’s name and price in Geneva next week, says: “We’ve always been a straightforward, personal and inherently British company, and with this car we’re offering the chance to own a limited production, truly bespoke supercar built alongside machines from the top level of prototype racing.

“Our customers will get the opportunity to take to the race track in race cars built alongside their car and shake the hands of the engineers who built them. Our customers become part of the family.”