The Welsh sports car that took on the big names of motoring
Jason Evans reports on the hand-built sports car from a butcher’s shop in Wales that was bought by a film star, and came close to entry at Le Mans
IT WAS a sleek and pretty sports car. It performed well on the track. It was hand-built. And it was made in Wales.
The Gilbern holds a special place in Welsh motoring history as the country’s only commercially produced car – a small company that took on some of the big boys.
At a time when British sports cars such as MG, Triumph, Austin-Healy, Lotus and Jaguar ruled the roads, one car proudly carried a dragon as its logo.
The story of the Gilbern is as unlikely as it is remarkable, and though the firm ultimately folded, hundreds of the cars are still with us as a motoring Welsh icon.
Gilberns were born 60 years ago from a friendship between a butcher and a former World War II German soldier turned washing machine engineer.
The butcher was Giles Smith, who ran a shop in Church Village near Pontypridd. The former soldier was Bernard Fries, who was born in Marienwerder in what is now Poland but was then east Prussia. As a teenager he joined the German army,
and after being captured during the war was sent to a camp in Kent.
He stayed in Britain after the war and married a local woman, working for a firm of coachbuilders before moving to Wales to work as a washing machine engineer.
A chance meeting one day sparked a friendship, and they found they had a shared interest in “specials” – hand-made and sometimes exotically-styled cars based on cheaply available mechanicals from pre-war Austins and Fords.
The two men decided to design and build their own “special”, taking advantage of Mr Fries’ knowledge of working with fibreglass from his coach-building days.
The pair worked on their project in the back of the family butcher’s shop, and their exploits soon came to the attention of a well-known local amateur racing driver called Peter “Taffy” Cottrell.
After visiting their slaughterhouse workshop and seeing the car for himself, the racer told the two men the vehicle was too good to be just a one-off – so they decided to go into business.
Looking for a name for their new company, they combined the first few letters from their respective forenames.
That was 1959, and their initial design became the Gilbern GT, a curvy two-plus-two sports car that used mechanical components from an Austin 35 underneath its fibreglass skin.
Gilbern soon outgrew its butchery shop origins, and in 1961 the firm bought – thanks to a loan from Mr Smith’s dad – a site at the former Red Ash Colliery in nearby Llantwit Fadre.
The cars were soon being used in motor sport, with other racing drivers joining Mr Cottrell in running the Gilbern GT competitively – there was even talk of a possible entry in the famous Le Mans event.
Among the owners was actor Anthony Hopkins, along with Mrs Marks of Marks and Spencer fame. Prince Charles was also spotted behind the wheel of one – though it seems he never owned one.
However, the little firm lacked financial muscle and in 1968 it was taken over by ACE, a Welsh firm best known for being a leading manufacturer of slot machines.
Gilbern looked like it was going places. But the early 1970s, with the economic turmoil of the oil crisis, rising inflation and three-day weeks, was a difficult time for many companies, including small car producers. Gilbern began to lose money. ACE itself was taken over by the huge Mecca company, an organisation more interested in entertainment than in making cars. In 1973 the receiver was called in.
The Gilbern Owners Club still organises regular rallies where the marque is celebrated.
And you may, on occasions, just glimpse one out and about on the open road – the little Welsh sports car born in a butcher’s shop.