Company profile
Gardner Douglas has been creating the type of sports cars that engage the driver to a uniquely satisfying driving experience and total engineering perfection since 1990.
Our Cars are hand crafted performance vehicles that respect an enduring fascination with 60′s era design but with every benefit of today’s highly advanced engine and chassis developments. Race proven at Europe’s most demanding circuits and distinctively competitive on the road the GD range represents the most successful modern perspective on the most iconic era of motorsport.
The Inspiration
Since 1990 much has been written about the company, its people and its cars. At a time when brand is everything it is reassuring to know that a major part of the GD brand is its reputation for always putting quality first. Quality in everything – attitude, skill, engineering and delivery.
From the outset the company produced premium sports cars for individuals who wanted the very best combination of 60s era design and contemporary handling and performance. Although Andrew Burrows had designed an entirely new car to demonstrate the company¹s engineering prowess, he chose, wisely, to bring these skills to an established marketplace where there was proven demand likely to sustain a fledgling business.
It was, and remains, a market offering an extraordinary range of cars from the crude and dangerous to the highly refined. GD has built its reputation from the top end of this market where nothing is sacrificed in the pursuit of the ultimate classic performance drive. And GD has deliberately avoided the temptation to merely replicate. Rather, the company has always offered its own interpretation “in the style of” to be consistent with the advanced engineering under the skin.
Cars with Soul
At one level all sports cars are just a bunch of components, designed, assembled, tested and then driven or raced. Today the global car brands offer staggering levels of sophistication in all their models. Huge investment in research and marketing goes into these ranges and the whole business model is based on the existence of fierce competition from the other big brands. From the driver¹s perspective there is a bewildering choice of functionality in contemporary production sports cars. But not always to their liking.
Gardner Douglas offers the type of sports cars that re-engage the driver with the real experience of open driving.
Why build a sports car that seems on the face of it to imitate a historic marque from another time? There are many answers. One is that there is an enduring fascination with cars of the 60s era when many driving legends were born. The AC marque, as an example, has a big following around the world and there is a special recognition of that moment in history when British beauty and American muscle came together in one machine to take on Ferrari.
There is a ready market for reproductions of these cars especially as the 60s originals are rare and a very substantial investment today. Another reason is that the AC Cobra had real presence. By today¹s aerodynamic standards it is undeniably crude but walk up to one and its shape speaks to you in a deeply evocative language. Climb into one and you will always feel different, special, individual. These cars have soul and long may they continue.