Gordon-Keeble Logo

Gordon-Keeble Brand Overview

Gordon-Keeble built one car, the GK1, for three short years in the 1960s, yet it remains one of the more original stories in British motoring. It began in 1959, when John Gordon, formerly of the struggling Peerless car company, teamed up with engineer Jim Keeble. A United States Air Force pilot stationed in England wanted more performance than his Peerless could give him, so Keeble fitted a Chevrolet Corvette V8 into a Peerless-based chassis. The swap worked so well that Gordon and Keeble decided to build a car of their own around the idea.

They designed a square-tube steel spaceframe chassis with independent front suspension and disc brakes on all four wheels, fitted with a 4.6-litre Chevrolet V8. The rolling chassis was shipped to Bertone in Turin, where a young Giorgetto Giugiaro drew a steel body for it in just 27 days, working around a shortage of parts. Badged simply “Gordon,” the finished car appeared on Bertone’s stand at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1960. Chevrolet’s management was impressed enough after a demonstration in Detroit to agree to supply engines and gearboxes for a production run.

The production company, Gordon-Keeble Automobile Company Ltd, was set up in 1964, first in Slough and then in a factory in Eastleigh, near Southampton. The production GK1 used a larger 5.4-litre, 300-horsepower Chevrolet 327 V8 and switched to a glass-fibre body. It undercut an Aston Martin DB4 by about £1,400 and cost roughly half as much as the cheapest Ferrari, at £2,798. That price was too low to cover the cost of hand-building the car, and supplier problems compounded the losses. After around 90 cars had been sold, the original company ran out of money and went into liquidation in 1965.

Harold Smith and Geoffrey West bought the assets later that year and continued production as Keeble Cars Ltd, but only briefly; the last car of the regular run was completed in 1966, and a hundredth car was assembled from spare parts in 1967. An American, John de Bruyne, bought the rights in 1968 and showed two De Bruyne-badged GK1s plus a mid-engined coupe prototype at that year’s New York Motor Show, but production never resumed. Exactly 100 Gordon-Keebles were built, and the marque’s owners’ club says that more than 90 still survive.

Gordon-Keeble Logo Meaning

The Gordon-Keeble badge shows a tortoise, walking, inside a laurel wreath on a yellow enamel background with a chrome surround. According to the story told by the company and repeated by automotive historians ever since, a pet tortoise wandered into the shot during an early photo session at the factory grounds. Rather than chase it off, Gordon and Keeble kept it as the emblem, enjoying the irony of putting one of the animal world’s slowest creatures on the nose of a 300-horsepower grand tourer that could beat an Aston Martin DB4 for a fraction of the price.

Gordon-Keeble Logo History and Evolution

1964–1967: The Tortoise and Laurel Badge

The tortoise badge was fitted to the bonnet of every Gordon-Keeble GK1 built between 1964 and 1967, under both the original Gordon-Keeble Automobile Company and its successor, Keeble Cars Ltd. No alternative design is documented; the badge outlived the company itself and today identifies the roughly 90 surviving cars maintained by the Gordon-Keeble Owners’ Club.

What Happened to Gordon-Keeble?

Gordon-Keeble never recovered from underpricing its own car. Selling a hand-built, Bertone-bodied grand tourer for less than an Aston Martin or a Jaguar meant the company lost money on every sale, and cash ran out before the business could scale up. The 1965 rescue by Harold Smith and Geoffrey West, and the 1968 attempt by John de Bruyne to revive production in the United States, both failed to change that basic arithmetic, and no Gordon-Keeble has been built since 1967.

FAQ

Who founded Gordon-Keeble?

John Gordon, a former director of the Peerless car company, and engineer Jim Keeble founded the marque. They built their first Chevrolet V8-powered prototype in 1959 and formed Gordon-Keeble Automobile Company Ltd in 1964 to put the car into production.

What does the Gordon-Keeble logo mean?

The emblem is a tortoise inside a laurel wreath, chosen after a pet tortoise wandered into a factory photo shoot. The company kept it as a wry joke: a slow animal badging one of Britain’s fastest and best-value grand tourers of the mid-1960s.

Who owns Gordon-Keeble today?

No company owns the Gordon-Keeble name today; production ended in 1967 and later revival attempts came to nothing. The roughly 90 surviving cars are looked after by private owners and the Gordon-Keeble Owners’ Club.

How many Gordon-Keebles were built?

Exactly 100 cars were made between 1964 and 1967, including one assembled from spare parts after the original production run had already ended.

What engine did the Gordon-Keeble GK1 use?

It used a 5.4-litre, 300-horsepower Chevrolet 327 V8 with a four-speed manual gearbox, mounted in a square-tube steel spaceframe chassis with a Bertone-built glass-fibre body designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro.