The Fairlite was a kit car built by the Walklett Brothers, who were also behind

Ginetta Cars Ginetta Cars Limited is a British specialist builder of racing and sports cars based in Garforth, Leeds, West Yorkshire. History 20th century Ginetta was founded in 1958 by four Walklett brothers (Bob, Ivor, Trevers and Douglas) in Woodbridge ...

, meant to be installed on the chassis of the Ford 8 and 10 HP. The Fairlite was the first full

fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) is a common type of fibre-reinforced plastic, fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened i ...

design developed by the Walklett Brothers, in response to a drying up of sales of "specials" in favor of the booming kit car market. The car was originally built as a

Kit car Kit may refer to: People and fictional characters * Kit (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or nickname * Kit (surname), a list of people Places * Kit, Iran, a village in Mazandaran Province * Kit Hill ...

based on the Ford 8 and 10 HP wheelbase, but the body could be fit to many other chassis such as the Buckler spaceframe. Despite the car selling reasonably well, with 60 being made, the Walklett Brothers did not think the car followed the ethos of what they wanted Ginetta cars to be – it did not handle particularly well, and to be a Ginetta a car had to have an in-house chassis. The Fairlite was therefore never sold under the Ginetta name. The kit cost £49 new. The car cuts down on the weight of the Ford 8 and 10 HP by , meaning the acceleration gain is massive, with the Ginetta improving on the Ford 10 HP top speed of , up to , which means it accelerated to , in about 11 seconds, versus the Ford 10 HP which is unable to hit .

References

{{Ginetta Cars Cars introduced in 1958 Cars discontinued in 1962 Kit cars 1960s cars Fairlite