Whatever possessed you to buy a Gilbern?

[GGenie69]

Although we are from all over the place the one thing that brings us together is a Gilbern. So how and why did we choose a Gilbern?

For me, it all started in 1981 when I bought my first one, a Genie AVT 528H. I was 20 years old, working in London and travelling back to North Wales every weekend. I had a Mk1 RS 2000 and a Triumph 2000 but was looking for something different. I had narrowed my choice down to either a Gordon Keebles or a TR6 and then I read a magazine article which featured a silver Mk3, I think, but I was smitten. Having been born in Caerphilly and feeling very patriotic I knew I had to buy a Welsh car. It didn’t take me long to spin it, run it off the road and race everybody who looked my way, until after about 8 months I lost my licence for accumulating points and not long after that, my job. I took the opportunity to fix up some things on it and paint it. When I got my licence back after 8 months the insurance was too much for a 20 year old on the dole so it had to go. Still, my mother was very relieved.

In 1987 living and working on the coast of North Wales I was fed up with the cars rusting in the salt air and decided a fibreglass car was the way to go. So I bought a beach buggy. Now, I don’t know if your familiar with the coast of Wales but it tends to rain a lot and when it’s not raining a lot it’s raining a little. The Beach Buggy was totally impractical, although I had bought it on the one sunny day we had in August so it was excellent for 24hrs, I was a beach God. I then bought my second Gilbern, an Invader Mk1, JLU 5K much to my mothers dismay. This time I was travelling every weekend to Birmingham to visit my girlfriend eventually a new job and house in Redditch. After a few years this job was gone and I ended up travelling the world for 18 months before settling down in Newcastle. There’s nothing wrong with Newcastle but after awhile I kept thinking of the weather and opportunities in Australia.

I’d been here for a couple of years when an advert appeared in a national magazine for a Ford Gilbern Genie, the guy couldn’t sell it, no one knew what it was and no one cared. Being the patriotic Welshman that I am I hooked up a trailer and drove for 7 hours bought the thing, loaded it on and drove the 7 hours back home. I then rang my mother to tell her the news!!. I was in the middle of renovating a house at the time so it sat for 3 years in the garage untouched. I then built a 36ft x 18ft shed to put it in and start work on it. I have recently moved house and currently building another shed to move the Genie to. I was hoping to have it on the road by Feb for its 40th birthday however, the wife and kids want me to spend some time with them over Christmas, I wonder if they’d all like to work on the Gilbern? Now there’s a plan.

Richard.

[Greybags]

Originally read a restoration article for a White Estate, in Car & Conversions I think it was.

Thought it was one of the prettiest Estate's I had ever seen ..

Spent a bit of time finding out a bit more about them and that at some later date promised myself I would have one..

Over the following years I have kept a real interest in classic cars, helping other repair their's but never having the right combination of time and money to get a classic of my own.

Too many long hours at work, 100,000 miles driving in just one year, lots of time away from home living in hotels, might have earned me a lot of money but also helped in making me somewhat ill, with a prolonged absence from work (nearly 8 months) I now had the time and the money, so to stop me getting bored, Alison (wife) bought me an 68 MGBGT (see picture on other thread) to restore, which I did and enjoyed driving and showing for several years.

The youngest daughter who used to ride in the back of the GT started to complain of hitting her head on the roof, so a search for a new project was on..

Once again it was Alison that found the Gilbern on the web one day whilst I was at work and rang me to check that it was the Invader Estate that I had previously talked about, it was, so she bought it for me, and it was actually dragged from the trailor into my garage as the wheels wouldn't turn.

That was about 18 months or so ago, and now all the mechanical is completed, and it's just body and interior left to do.

Cant wait to actually get to drive it, as except for a trip up and down the drive, I've never driven opr ridden a real working Gilbern...
I just hope it's as good as I imagine it will be...

Long story over ...

Grahame

[craig 12]

i first spotted my first mk3 in sheffield around 1980, asking a collegue as i didnt know what it was, i bought my first classic about a year ago a 72 mgb gt but it was a project with the old tin worm, a good £1500 would have been needed to get to a ok condition

i bought my mk 2 out of rarebit off a very nice gentleman called ian , a 1 owner car from 1972 with all original bills invoices handbook, this may shock you all but i know not a lot about the restoration or mechanics or service of such a specialist car like ours

i have to rely on local mechanics at reasonable rates, thats why i had to opt for a car which was running, but im in the aa and we never venture far, the way i look at it is that i probably saved another mk 2 as the car had been on sorn for about 4 yrs.

i think what i can say about why did i buy one, well its so unique, production numbers not into thousands like other classics, they dont rot, its a very unusual shape , it sounds just great, and its different. stags,tvr,mgb,austin,cortina , all have something but this has that something different,the only thing that i think compares is the sister fibreglass model the scimitar , they are just as quirky..

[trippdl]

When we were young, my sister and I would be packed off to visit my grandmother in Massachusetts; she was a librarian, and I'd often spend rainy afternoons at a library table with stacks of motoring mags, among them Sports Car Graphic and Road & Track. One of these, at least, carried reprints of road tests done by Autocar, and I seem to recall an actual test of a GT 1800 at the importer in Maryland. When I was in high school, one of my mates was about to get a new sports car, and I argued in favour of the then-new Genie. In the end, he had one of the very first MGB-GT's, as there was an MG dealer about 15 miles away, versus a couple hundred to Maryland.

When I came here in the early Nineties, one of my (mature) students was a fellow who had been Champion in ProdSports. He was looking for a 'Last Car', one that he would do up now that could carry him as a toy until he stopped driving. I recommended a TVR Vixen, having had one myself. In the course of the searching, we stopped in to see Ron Harper in Middlesbrough, who had a couple of Gilberns in at the time, and I thought these looked rather nice.

When I was looking for a 'Last Car' for myself a few years later, I didn't want a TVR, because I figured I'd always be in competition with my friend; as there could only be one winner and his pockets were deeper than mine, I thought I needed something different, LOL. I was looking for the same things, though, light weight, simple engine, no modern 'improvements' like ABS and stability control, and no tax. I recalled the Gilberns as having all of thee attributes, and, perhaps more to the point, they looked easier to get in and out of than the TVR.

I bought a Mark III that had been off the road for a couple of years, and had it taken to a friend's racecar shop to be re-commissioned, and drove it for a year, until I took it to Phil for a relatively minor repair, only for him to discover that there were gaping holes in the chassis. I thought that a fiberglass car would eliminate the tin-worm problem, but not entirely, it seems. While it was off the road, I sold my place and the car had to be sold as well, but I still had all these accumulated spares, and, well, I just had to get another...

Dudley Thompson, the GOC Area Coordinator in Lincolnshire, had commented at one point that 'Gilberns were like a kind of disease, as you got one, then needed some spares, so you bought another, then all of a sudden, you had five, and didn't know how it happened'.

I'm trying to cut down, I'm down to only three now. And, if anyone wants a wire-wheeled Genie, that could be two very quickly...

[Gilbern74]

Well if you have read my Never Ending Restoration Story you will know that the car was given to me by my Dad back in 2003. (A cheap way into the Gilbern clan? No way! The amount I've spent on it since I could have got something quicker and better equipped. It isn't even near completion and I haven't even driven it yet!!!)

So it's been 'there' since I was 5 years old when my dad bought it in 1975 - 33 years in the same family now - but hasn't been taxed or driven on the road since June 1990 !!!
Being bright yellow and a head-turning car I rememeber being taken to school in it and the regular comments like "Wow, what is that. Is is a Ferrari?" from my school mates, or the perplexed looks from the other yummy-mummy's driving their kids to school in their XJS's and the like.
So whilst I have a desire for many of the more modern sports or play cars out there, I couldn'r resist getting my hands on the Mk3.

Having started taking it apart I had originally thought about just putting in a rollcage, adding a bit of power and entering Historic Sports Car racing. But that idea faded away as my job just wouldn't allow for the time needed to prepare and I realised the annual costs would add up. So I'm sticking with a full restoration (hopefully with a beast under the bonnet) that will do the car and badge some justice, get some looks and hopefully be very fun (and safe) to drive.

Jason

['Gilbert']

Sorry to say the reason for buying my GT was much simpler- I wanted to build a 2litre FIA race car but didn't want an MG! While looking for 'something different' I came across ESG382C in a 'half built' state. The most difficult job of fitting a FIA roll cage had been done, so 'Gilbert' as the car became known after a non-classic-car-fan lady friend mis-pronounced Gilbern became mine 31st Jan 2007. The first track appearance was two months later!

Since then the original short engine had to be binned due to a big-end failure and discovery of a split main bearing cap, plus the rocker shaft broke in practice at the next race. I'm on the third gearbox, and 2nd diff after an experiment with a Phantom Grip LSD proved a waste of time. However, after much work on the rear suspnsion links we can now get round corners as well as most! Oh, and the clutch hydraulics packed up on the warm up lap for another race, and new repro front calipers proved to be a disaster- prompting re-fitting of the original units. The brakes are now superb!

I wouldn't now swap my GT for any of it's competitors- it is pretty, fun to drive, looks superb on track and the amount of photos that get taken of it at races exceeds most exotica that may also be there. I have been offered another GT project and would be sorely tempted but fortunately am spent out on Gilbert- so one Gilbern for me, for now!

Mike

[GGenie69]

Thank you to all my "brothers" who replied to this thread. It has been a most enjoyable and informative insight into Gilbern ownership.
Could we have some more from other owners please?

Richard.

[Bitsa]

Wife "I'm going to enter us into a Historic Rally with the TVR"

Husband "But the TVR is an inch off the ground and would last about four miles and you wouldn't enjoy driving it. " (also thinks "and I couldn't be a passenger !?")

Wife " Then you'd better find something we can both drive "

RESULT !!!!!!

I've always had a "thing" about British Fibreglass and knew a Genie seemed to fit the bill for a mild road rally car.

As usual decided a rebuild of a complete pile of rubbish would enable me to get the exact spec of car I wanted. It would also allow me to scatter the drive with bits of fibreglass and rust, scuff my knuckles and keep the neighbours on their toes with the scream of an angle grinder ....

With hindsight I should have contacted the club first but to be honest I think there was also "Divine Intervention" as getting hold of one of the very last Genies with all the chassis strengthening a day after "er indoors" had a moment of madness seems to be a result !!

Work and winter have temporarily stopped play .....