Gordon-Keeble
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Gordon-Keeble was a British make of cars made first in Slough, then Eastleigh, Hampshire and finally in Southampton, England between 1963 and 1967. The car's badge was unusual featuring a tortoise.
The Gordon-Keeble came about when John Gordon formerly of the struggling Peerless/Warwick company and Jim Keeble got together in 1959 to make the Gordon GT car by fitting a Buick 3.5 litre V8 into a Peerless chassis. The car was further developed with a 4.6 litre Chevrolet V8 fitted into a square tube steel spaceframe chassis with independent front suspension and all round disc brakes. The complete chassis was then taken to Turin where a body made of aluminium panels designed by Giugiaro was built by Bertone. The car's four five-inch headlights were in the rare, slightly angled arrangement used by the British car makers Triumph and Bentley, which also made fast cars. The complete car appeared on the Bertone stand at the 1960 Geneva Motor Show. After extensive road testing the car was shipped to Detroit and shown to Chevrolet management who agreed to supply Corvette engines and gearboxes for a production run of the car.
The car was readied for production with some changes, the main ones being a larger 5.4 litre engine and a change from aluminium body to glass fibre. Problems with suppliers ensued and before any cars were made the money ran out and the company went into liquidation. About 90 cars had been sold at what turned out to be an unrealistic price of £2798.
In 1965 the company was bought by Harold Smith and Geoffrey West and it was re-registered as Keeble Cars Ltd and production resumed but only for a short time with the last car being made in 1966. A final one was actually produced in 1967 from spares bringing the total made to exactly 100.
An attempt to restart production in 1968 under new owners came to nothing.
[edit] External links
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- Gordon-Keeble Club website (please note that from 14th Sept 2006, the Website address has changed to www.gordonkeeble.org.uk following the demise of the original server)
