Classic in the Dock
Page 24
Jack Colby’s own classic cars
Jack’s 1965 Gordon-Keeble
One hundred of these fabulous supercars were built between 1963 and ’66 with over ninety units surviving around the globe, mostly in the UK. Designed by John Gordon and Jim Keeble using current racing car principles with the bodyshell designed by twenty-one-year-old Giorgetto Giugiaro at Bertone, the cars were an instant success but the company was ruined by supply-side industrial action with ultimately only ninety-nine units completed even after the company was relaunched in May 1965, as Keeble Cars Ltd.
Final closure came in February 1966 when the factory at Sholing closed and Jim Keeble moved to Keewest Developments, the firm Keeble then formed with Geoffrey West. The hundredth car was completed in 1971 with leftover components. The Gordon-Keeble’s emblem is a yellow and green tortoise.
Jack’s 1938 Lagonda V-12 Drophead
The Lagonda company won its attractive name from a creek near the home of the American-born founder Wilbur Gunn in Springfield, Ohio. The name given to it by the American Indians was Ough Ohonda. The V-12 Drophead was a car to compete with the very best in the world, with a sporting twelve-cylinder engine which would power the two 1939 Le Mans cars. Its designer was the famous W.O. Bentley. Sadly, many fine pre-war saloons have been converted to Le Mans replicas. The V-12 cars are very similar externally to the earlier six-cylinder versions; both types were available with open or closed bodywork in a number of different styles. The V-12 Drophead also featured in Jack’s earlier case, Classic in the Barn.