Lost in the sea of small, affordable British sportscars, the G4 is much more than a pretty face.

Now if you are any sort of car fan and you own a Playstation 2, you probably have Gran Turismo 4 lying around somewhere in there as well. Among its impressive list of just over 750 cars is this week’s Car of the Week, the Ginetta G4.

The company itself started out in 1958 building kit cars with Ford engines. In 1961, they released the G4, this being the first Ginetta to be widely available, though still offered as a kit car for those who enjoy building their own car.

When it was first launched, power came from a 1.0 litre engine sourced from the Ford Anglia (The car famous for being the flying car in Harry Potter), though later it would be upgraded to a 1.5 litre Cortina engine. Despite the modest powerplants, it enjoyed some racing success, mostly due to the fact it was very light.

In its 8-year lifespan, the G4 suffered a lot of changes until we arrive at the Series III. Besides the aforementioned Cortina engine it had an improved chassis, BMC-provided rear suspension and pop-up headlamps just to compliment the package.

To say that the G4 is rare is an understatement. 500 were produced by 1969. However, in 1982 Ginetta realized how incredible a car they had made, as the British competition had pretty much killed itself. So they had an open road, and gave us this:

The G27 has a Jaguar differential, Jaguar rear discs, Jaguar driveshafts and hub carriers. It now had a 2.0L engine, with 1.3 and 1.6 litre options available, but underneath it all it’s still a G4.

DARE UK is even selling G4’s to this day. Using modern Ford engines, Ginetta’s current car, the G20, has G4 DNA in it. It’s simply unbelievable how much this forgotten little sports car from the 60’s was able to survive. It also makes it more than worthy to be our Car of the Week.

I’ll go play some Gran Turismo now.

Image credit:

Ginetta G4: lecates / CC BY-SA 2.0

Ginetta G4 Series III: exfordy / CC BY 2.0

Ginetta G27: Wikimedia Commons