Ginetta G40 GRDC (2015)

[satanboy]

Month 2 running a Ginetta G40: race car vs McDonald's drive-thru

Time for the obligatory racing car with numberplates versus McDonald’s drive-thru test. Despite the turning circle of a small moon and a driving position lower than industry standard Happy Meal arm-reach the G40 passed, and even got a smile out of the staff. It’s fared better still at Tesco, where speedbumps hold no fear and the 200-litre boot can take a week’s shopping with space to spare, although I did accidentally gut one of the bags on an exposed fastener.

By James Taylor

Month 1 running a Ginetta G40 GRDC: the introduction to our long-term test

The CAR long-term test fleet is a broad church. Hybrid limo rubs shoulders with hot hatch, sports car with SUV. But the one thing it’s been missing is a racing car. Until now.

That’s because we’re going to be logging plenty of flying hours in this Ginetta G40 Club car, the house-trained, fully road-legal version of the Leeds firm’s miniature GT racer. There are various species of G40, but this one is in GRDC (Ginetta Racing Drivers Club) spec. That’s Ginetta’s all-inclusive package aimed at newcomers to motorsport, where a bit over £30k nets a taxed, road-registered G40 Club car like this one and entry to a dedicated eight-race championship to run it in, along with tuition, trackdays and various other perks. And once a GRDC driver’s got a season under their belt, and presumably been bitten hard by the motorsport bug, they can then use the same car in the level-up GRDC+ championship – similar deal, but this time with more experienced hands allowed to enter.

We’re going to get a glimpse of that experience for ourselves; we’ll race the car in a GRDC round, explore its limits under a bit less pressure in a trackday environment, and, since it’s got number plates, enjoy it on the road as much as possible. Can you do a weekly shop in a racing car? And will it be foiled by a McDonalds drive-thru? There’s only one way to find out.

We’ll also get involved in this year’s want2race competition, a search for one lucky – but talented – novice driver to win a fully funded season in the 2016 GRDC championship. We’ll be sharing the G40 with want2race, who’ll use this car to assess entrants’ driving skills in some of the competition’s qualification stages (one of which with yours truly ‘helping’ and/or whimpering from the passenger seat), and at the competition’s finale in autumn. Entries close in September - click the link above for details.

So, the car. We've reviewed the G40 GRDC elsewhere on the site (read the test here), but to recap, it’s a tiny two-seater coupe with fibreglass skin cladding a super-strong tubular steel skeleton, which doubles as an FIA-ratified rollcage. In the front there’s an 1800cc Ford Zetec engine (breathed on with Ginetta’s own sump, throttle bodies and alternator unit, taking power to 135bhp), at the back there’s a torque-biasing limited-slip diff and in the middle there’s a five-speed H-pattern manual gearbox – one of the most deliciously sweet-shifting I’ve ever used.

The GRDC-spec G40 is currently Ginetta’s only road car offering, now that the mid-engined G60 (née Farboud/Farbio) has been put on ice. We picked the car up at the company’s larger-than-you’d think, and spotlessly clean, Garforth factory, and had a good look at other G40s progressing from metal tubes on a jig to final assembly. Ginetta’s keen to big up the design’s safety credentials – after all, 14 to 17 year olds race a version of this car in the BTCC-supporting Ginetta Junior championship. And if you’ve caught any of it on TV, you’ll know they’re all a bit mad and not afraid to explore the scenery. So the chassis is 50 times stronger than it needs to be to meet MSA safety standards, and the fuel tank’s a proper FIA safety cell positioned ahead of the (actually quite reasonably sized) boot.

Ginetta offers the option of air-conditioning and a heater, along with a ‘Touring Pack’: sound deadening, carpets and neater interior trim. This is a car you could drive to the track, race and drive home again. But how many GRDC drivers actually do? Quite a few, I’m told. One GRDC+ driver put a folding awning in the boot earlier this season, drove to Oulton Park and drove home again two days later with three race wins under his belt. I’m assured others are so taken with their cars they’ve even commuted to work in them during the week. Living the dream, as they say.

Behind the removable steering wheel, you’re never in any doubt it’s a racing car first and a road car second, though. This one scores extra racing authenticity points as it’s been specced without any of the Touring Pack niceties. Like all G40s, it also does without power steering, ABS, and traction control. It’s a proper car, in short, and the ultimate antidote to the over-assisted sensory deprivation tanks we spend most of our time driving. I emerged from the first journey from Leeds to CAR’s Peterborough HQ slightly deaf, moderately sweaty and with an enormous grin. The next few months are going to be a lot of fun.



By James Taylor

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