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Gordon-Keeble was a British car marque, made first in Eastleigh, then Sholing, both near Southampton (England), between 1963 and 1967. The marque's badge was unusual in featuring a tortoise — a pet tortoise walked into the frame of an inaugural photo-shoot, taken in the grounds of the makers. Because of the irony (the slowness of tortoises) the animal was chosen as the emblem.

The Gordon-Keeble came about when John Gordon, formerly of the struggling Peerless Cars Ltd, and Jim Keeble got together in 1959 to make the Gordon GT car. Jim was already working on a 'special' for US pilot named Rick Nielsen, who required a Chevrolet Corvette V8 engine fitting to a Peerless chassis. Immediately, John Gordon and Jim Keeble realised the potential of such a car but the Gordon GT was to be far more advanced that any Peerless. Jim Keeble fitted a 4.6 litre Chevrolet (283 c.i.) into a square-tube steel spaceframe chassis, with independent front suspension and all-round disc brakes. The complete chassis was then taken to Turin, Italy, where a body made of steel panels designed by Giugiaro was built by Bertone. The car's four five-inch headlights were in the rare, slightly angled "Chinese eye" arrangement also used by a few other European marques, generally for high-speed cars such as Lagonda Rapide,and Lancia Flaminia, as well as Rolls-Royce. The interior had an old luxury jet feel, with white on black gauges, toggle switches, and quilted aircraft PVC.[1] The car appeared on the Bertone stand at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1960 - branded simply Gordon GT. The design and development period was very short, with Jim Keeble taking just three months to design and produce the rolling chassis,[5] after which the steel body was built at breakneck speed by Bertone in precisely 27 days.[3] After extensive road testing the car was shipped to Detroit and shown to Chevrolet management, who agreed to supply Corvette engines and gearboxes for a production run of the car. Finding suitable financial backers and manufacturing facilities for the project took far longer than would be expected and it was summer 1963 before production could be considered.

The Gordon-Keeble GK1 was unveiled at the Savoy Hotel on 10th December 1963. The car was visually as the Gordon GT, with some mechanical alterations, the main ones being a larger 5.4 litre (327 c.i.) engine and a change from steel body to glass fibre. Problems with suppliers occurred and before many cars were made the money ran out and the company went into liquidation. About 90 cars had been sold at what turned out to be an unrealistic price of £2798. Each car had two petrol tanks.[1]

In 1965 the company was bought by Harold Smith and Geoffrey West and was re-registered as Keeble Cars Ltd. Production resumed, but only for a short time, the last car of the main manufacturing run being made in 1966. A final example was actually produced in 1971 from spares, bringing the total made to exactly 100. The Gordon-Keeble Owners' Club records show that over 90 examples still exist.

An attempt was made to restart production in 1968 when the rights to the car were bought by an American, John de Bruyne, but this came to nothing, although two cars badged as De Bruynes were shown at that year's New York Motor Show along with a new mid-engined coupé.[4]

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