All about Gilbern
Nationality: Welsh
Born: 1959
When master butcher Giles Smith set his heart on a fibreglass "Special", he decided to design his own from scratch. He enlisted the help of engineer Bernard Friese, a German POW who had stayed on after the war and settled in the Rhondda Valley. Part of his experience had been with a glass fibre company in the course of which he had built such a 'Special'.
So they got to work in the yard behind Smith's butcher shop, building the prototype GT. The name was from a combination of parts of their first names.
The first car looked like the post-war Bristols which had developed from appropriated BMW technology. Engine and other parts were sourced from Austin and Austin Healey.
Just before the car was completed, local racing driver Peter Cotterell was invited to see it. His enthusiasm persuaded the pair that their GT shouldn't be a one-off. Autosport magazine did a road test in 1960 and was also impressed.
In 1961 the pair bought a site for a plant in Llantwit Fardre. Smith and Friese decided that the Gilbern wouldn't be a "kit car", which provides a shell with the buyer installing secondhand mechanicals. Their cars would come with body, new mechanicals coming separately to be put together by the buyer.
The early cars were offered with a variety of engines, from Austin-Healey, MG and Coventry Climax, including a supercharged unit. Eventually, the company standardised on MGA and MGB engines. From producing a car a month at first, numbers quadrupled by 1965, when Gilbern exhibited at the London Motor Show. Around this time Gilbern tried out Ford's new V4 and V6 engines, but found the former to be underpowered. In 1966 the Genie was developed - it had MGB and Austin-Healey underpinnings initially. In went into production a year later, overlapping for a short time with the GT1800.
In 1968, not prepared to invest any more in the project, Smith and Friese let the company be taken over by a local family business group, ACE, whose primary production was slot machines. Under the direction of Roger Collins, extra staff was hired and the Invader was developed. With chassis based on the Genie, this car replaced the latter in 1969. By this time, both founders had left the business.
The Invader had stress problems with the front chassis components, and a Mk II was announced in 1970. This was followed by an Invader Estate in 1971. Although the workforce had trebled, production numbers were more or less static, and the company was losing money every year. A 2-seater rear-engined sports car was built in prototype form, using the transverse engine from the Austin Maxi, but it was never developed to production.
The Mk III Invader came along in 1972, mainly with Ford mechanicals including suspension from the Cortina Mk III. Taxation changes now suggested that the Gilberns should be sold in fully-built form, but in price terms they were competing with Jaguar and BMW and didn't have the production capacity to meet them.
The Collins family sold out to their manager, Michael Leather, in 1972 for £1. He brought in outside investment and management expertise, but the enterprise failed to make enough cars to deal with its debts. The advent of yet another investor wasn't a success, and in early 1974 the company closed.
Attempts by no fewer than five groups to restart the firm failed over the rest of the decade.
BEST CAR: Invader Mk III
WORST CAR: Invader Mk I
WEIRDEST CAR: The Estate version, which looked like a hearse.