Thursday, May 5, 2011

Gordon-Keeble GK1 - A Great, But Mostly Unknown Car

by Mike -

An exotic four passenger early 1960s European GT car styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro, while at Bertone, and powered by a Corvette 327 cid engine with a 4-speed manual transmission. It is fast and stylish.

This sounds like the Iso Rivolta GT but it is the Gordon-Keeble GK1.


Gordon-Keeble, based in England, was founded by two ex-aircraft engineers, John Gordon and Jim Keeble, who began at Peerless, another British car company.

The GK1 is identical in concept to the Iso Rivolta GT. Only 100 GK1s were produced from 1964 through 1968 because the Gordon-Keeble company ran into financial problems which was, and still is, quite common in the car business.


It is likely not a coincidence that the GK1 seems so similar to the Iso Rivolta GT because John Gordon met Renzo Rivolta in the early 1960s and gave Mr. Rivolta, and some of Iso's engineers, a ride in his new creation before the Iso Rivolta GT was designed.

The GK1 chassis was also left with the Iso engineers for study for a brief time.



The Gordon-Keeble GK1 is the blue car above and the Iso Rivolta GT is the burgundy car below. Their performance specifications are nearly identical.

Click on the images for a larger view.



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The photos of the white GK1 are by Thesupermat. The photo of the blue GK1 is by Ralf Prien.


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