The life story of a Ginetta G4
Bought following a chance encounter at a Birmingham zebra crossing in 1966, this Ginetta G4 and its original owner began a global racing adventure that’s lasted half a century
Peter ‘Leigh’ Davis smiles matter-of-factly, slightly perplexed at me questioning his chosen basis for a rally car. ‘Well, you only have to look at Group B cars,’ he explains. ‘They were built along the same lines as the Ginetta – spaceframes and composite bodies. It’s just that I got there first.’ And with that, he erupts into laughter, before outlining further tales of derring-do. The yarns come in thick and fast, be it rallying his G4 in the Himalayas, or braving the banking at Daytona International Speedway aboard the same car. This remarkable sportsman has spent the past 50 years campaigning the Ginetta in events as diverse as ten-lappers at Mallory Park and the Carrera Panamericana via all things in-between. Together, they have covered more than 20,000 competitive miles and their adventures are far from over. Peter ‘Leigh’ Davis buys the G4 new in 1966 for £713 ‘I had no prior interest in cars,’ the Warwickshire man insists. ‘A chance encounter at a zebra crossing in Birmingham changed all that. I was riding my BSA 500 Gold Star and spotted this little sports car. I had no idea what it was but had to find out so I followed it until the owner pulled into his driveway. He told me it was a Ginetta G4. I was instantly smitten saved up £713 and placed an order for one. In December 1966, LAC 64E was delivered. It was meant to be in kit form but there was very little to do other than fit the headlights and do some minor plumbing. A few weeks later, my garage-owning uncle said I should race it. I hadn’t had even considered it before, but that was the catalyst. In April 1967 I found myself on the grid at Castle Combe. In front of me was John Miles in a Lotus 47. Behind me was Doc Merfield in his V8 Cortina. I had a few spins but finished second in class. I was hooked.’
Roving and racing from 1967
The next four seasons were spent racing in club thrashes and Modsports events, the original metallic blue hue making way for a white and green livery along the way. However, a BRSCC invitational race at Zandvoort, Holland, towards the end of 1970 changed everything. ‘By that point the original 997cc Ford engine had been replaced with a 1-litre Cosworth MAE F3 screamer. Unfortunately, it broke a conrod at 10,200rpm on the approach to Tarzan Corner, but it gave me a taste for international competition so I entered the car in the following year’s Barcelona 1000km race. That was fun, but a bit fraught. We were next to the Gulf Wyer Racing team in the pit lane. They were there with a Porsche 917 for Derek Bell and Gijs van Lennep. I was sharing the G4 with Roger Andreason and doing all the work on the car myself. The differential cracked in practice, I’m surmising because of Roger’s weight, but I managed to get it repaired and was still bolting it in as the cars were lining up on the grid. We’d moved up to 16th place by the third hour, having started in 24th. Then the engine gave way with two broken exhaust valves. I only had one spare. It later transpired that the organisers had over-leaded the fuel to boost the octane rating.’
A ‘forced’ entry to the 1972 Targa Florio
Davis returned to Blighty and club racing but the lure of international competition was never far away. ‘I decided to do the 1972 Targa Florio but I must confess that I was forced into it by circumstance. I was racing at Thruxton when Jon Fletcher spun off in his Lotus Elan. I ended up passing three cars under a yellow flag. At the tribunal, I admitted that I was already committed to overtaking a car when I saw the flag. On the next lap, the oil light came on so I had to floor it to get the pressure back up, which meant I went past another car. I couldn’t think of an excuse for overtaking the third car though! My race licence was suspended for three months, but it just so happened that the date of its reinstatement coincided with first practice for the Targa. I requested a predated license and entered. I then set about preparing the G4 and installed a Brm-lotus twin-cam unit, which had previously resided in the back of Vern Schuppan’s Palliser single-seater.’
The trip to Sicily wasn’t without heartbreak, though. ‘The car was pulling 143mph at 8200rpm on the straights. Unfortunately a fireman’s strike meant that practice was greatly reduced. We were one of a number of entries that weren’t allowed out in qualifying because we hadn’t completed the requisite number of practice laps, so I never got the chance to race. I’d entered the following weekend’s Nürburgring 1000km race so then trailered the G4 to Germany. The organisers wouldn’t let me out on track until my teammate had signed on. He never showed and with no time to find a replacement I had to sit that one out too.’
The rest of the decade was spent competing in the occasional club race, Davis anchoring a six-car Ginetta team to victory in the 1974 Birkett Six-hours, but there would be no further outings in the World Championship for Makes. Aside from anything, the Ginetta was no longer eligible, its homologation having elapsed, so Davis changed tack. And how. Needless to say, the decision to enter the 1982 Himalayan Rally was alcohol-induced.
Following a bumpy new career path from 1982
‘Over a pint, I asked my friend Roger Mugridge if he fancied a go at rallying. Originally I’d entered the Peking-paris but the dates kept being put back. Roger was open to having a go so I set about turning the G4 into a rally car. I replaced all of the suspension rosejoints with rubber bushes and installed a 1.6-litre Ford pushrod four with a lowered compression ratio to cope with the low-octane Indian fuel.’
The car may have been well-prepared, but its driver and wingman were rather less so. ‘Neither of us knew the first thing about rallying,’ Davis admits. ‘I remember handing Roger a wad of route books and him asking me what they were for... Matters didn’t get off to a great start when we had to physically lift the car’s nose in order to clear the start ramp. The crowd fell about laughing.’ After showing pace during the early running, their adventure came to an abrupt halt after the car beached itself on a sandbank.
Unbowed, Davis and LAC64E returned a year later, this time with a significantly raised ride height. He and new wingman Roger Crowley finished a respectable 21st overall after 2500 punishing miles of largely off-piste motoring. Following another 1000 miles of on-road driving to Bombay, the car was shipped back to the UK and mothballed. It was disinterred for the 1988 Pirelli Classic Marathon where it was vying for outright honours only to tumble down a mountainside on the Cortina hill climb on the final day. Davis and co-driver Duncan Mcniven still made it to the flag, though, albeit in a frustrating 12th place.
More stamps in the passport in 1988
With little more than a minor service, the G4 was then driven to Berlin for the start of the ADAC Tour d’europe. ‘It was a 7000km event that took in ten countries in eight days – far tougher than anything Duncan or I had ever done before. You would drive for 33 hours with only a couple of stops and then have two hours sleep before doing it all again. It required absolute commitment.’ That was one thing they didn’t lack, the duo emerging as class victors. What’s more, the then-21-year-old Ginetta had beaten works-backed BMW M3s in the process. A return run in 1989 with professional co-driver Sven Broderson ended with electrical problems, while a tilt at honours in 1990 with Mcniven almost ended after a wheel parted company near the Arctic Circle. They hobbled to the finish on a spare despite not having the correct number of wheelnuts, but all hopes of another class win were lost.
There would be no more outings until the 2003 Carrera Panamericana. ‘I pushed the car onto the boat bound for Mexico,’ Davis recalls. ‘I then finished reassembling it on the dockside in Vera Cruz. What an event though. It was a 1600-mile, seven-day thrash with much of it more than 6000ft above sea level.
‘I was next to the Gulf team in the pits – they were there with Derek Bell’s 917 and I was working on the Ginetta myself‘
Most of the other cars there were tube-framed Studebakers and suchlike with about 600bhp, and I think a lot of our rivals were surprised that we came home 24th overall, having completed most of the distance at peak revs.’
Back on track in 2014
The Ginetta’s next outing at the 2014 Classic 24 Hours of Daytona was its first on-track race in more than 30 years. True to form, it wasn’t without incident. ‘We arrived in Daytona late on a Sunday evening. After a long flight and a brief glimpse of the track, we headed for our hotel. We were greeted in reception by a police officer and a man who had been stabbed in his room by an intruder. By Wednesday the car had cleared customs, but only after frantic phone calls to the shipping agent and assistant port director in order to get it released. Reunited, we were on our way only for the lights to pack up halfway down Interstate 95. The G4 felt rather small surrounded by American trucks and trailers. We arrived at the Speedway, but only after everyone else had packed up for the night. We were forced to leave the car parked outside the gates.’
Our hero did eventually make it out onto the circuit, with only the occasional under-bonnet fire and lack of illumination stopping his fun during the early running. But in the dead of night, the engine lost oil pressure and seized. ‘The consensus from guys with a lot more experience of racing at Daytona was that we should have been running a dry sump and had higher gearing to reduce revs on the banked sections. With that, the poor old Cortina engine might have made it to the end.’
There are no plans to return, though. Davis’ thoughts instead turning to competing in the Angoulême International Circuit des Remparts in September. So, as he approaches in the Big 7-0, is there any likelihood of him throttling back and retiring the G4? The point-blank answer is ‘No’. And with that, discussion turns to the rebuild of the faithful Ford four-banger. That, and passing comment on the bonnet badge. ‘That’s perhaps the last original part on the car,’ he says, effortlessly segueing into another top-notch anecdote. ‘You see where there’s a bit missing? That happened after we were attacked by wild dogs in the Czech Republic. One of them took a bite out of it. Anyway, there we were when…’
‘The lights packed up on the I-95. Surrounded by American trucks, the G4 felt rather small’