Three years ago this Mini powered Ginetta from Canada was a total mystery. Slowly the voids are being filled in since Denis Caron bought the car, with no idea what it actually was.
Trevor Pyman, a registrar of the Ginetta Owners Club and the author of the history of the Ginetta G4 wrote to me that several G4s were actually exported to the Montreal area of Canada in 1965/'66 with a few of these currently missing. "This body shell may well be from one of these", he said.
But then Ivan Samila threw another light on the case: "I came across this car in the mid 1980s in a shop in Barrie, Ontario. They guy who was building it was a fiberglass fabricator. He has his own moulds that he had taken off of an original Ginetta, as far as I recall. He was hoping to sell them as kit cars. I don't know what ever happened to the car or molds." Eventually he found an old invoice dated 1987 from the shop, revealing a name: "I found the fellow's name who was building this car. The fellow is Tony Mailes. I saw the car April 20 1987. I have tried to locate him but have not been successful."
Fast forward another couple of years and the picture below turns up, made by David Lindsey. He wrote: "I was at a Mini Meet East in Toronto or Maryland and came across these guys working on this car. I was so taken by the engine configuration that I just pulled a snap. That was years ago. Cheers!"
David believes it must have been in 1994 when he took the picture. And since it was seen on a meeting, more people will know about it I would think. Who's next to drop me a line about it? Are you still out there Tony Mailes?
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