Not quite true: the first project I remember Gordon working on was the Gitane, a very neat little ali-bodied GT car which used a rear-mounted transverse Mini engine/transmission unit. I think Chris Lawrence was the first to put the Mini power-pack in the back of a car with the Deep Sanderson, followed by Peter and Clive Radnall with the Landar. But the Gitane, announced in early 1962 as a properly-finished baby GT car, did pre-date the Unipower by some three years.
Gordon's family had a prosperous business in West Bromwich producing, I think, dumper trucks and the like. Having done a bit of racing himself in a Lotus 11, Gordon had grandiose plans to race the Gitane in Continental classics like the Nurburgring 1000 Kms, but I don't remember the car ever actually making it to any: students of Wimpffen may be able to confirm or deny this. Gordon's friend Alan Phillips, who was a partner in the project, effected an introduction to Italian tuner Giannini, and there was talk of an Italian-powered version, but Gordon lost interest in the whole project and sold the prototype. As far as I know, that was the only one built.
It was bought by Podge Dealey, whose brother Michael had helped Gordon build it in the first place, and he hillclimbed it for a while, having fitted a full-race 1400cc engine and converted the fast-back to a notch-back. He sold the car minus engine to a man in Devon, where it is maybe still rotting in a shed - unless anybody knows different?
Gordon, as has been said above, died at only 62. Alan Phillips, whom Autosport readers back then will remember covering Italian events like Mugello and the Targa Florio - he had a house in Italy, and was a fluent Italian speaker - was also responsible for the comprehensive pages of Formula 1 data and lap charts which we used to publish in Autosport with each Grand Prix report. He wrote them all out in his tiny, meticulously neat handwriting with a mapping pen, working late into the night on the Monday after each race, and then we shot them like an illustration and ran them over a double-page spread. In those days, when F1 statistics were not the science they are now and most reports just listed the grid and the top six finishers, Alan's charts were trend-setting. A relentless chain-smoker, he sadly succumbed to cancer some years ago.
Edited by Simon Taylor, 30 December 2010 - 18:14.
