Ginetta MD Talks Akula, Motorsport And Awkward Steward's Office Visits

Given all that’s changed for Ginetta over the past year or so, you can understand why things have been a bit quiet regarding the two road cars it previously announced. They are still, however, a going concern, managing director Amy Tomlinson confirmed when talking to Car Throttle.

The two cars were the £300k+ Akula hypercar, and the remastered version of one of Ginetta’s early cars, the G10. The latter was originally pegged for a 2023 debut, but Ginetta says this will now be 2024. Moulds were taken of an original G10, but the company is now looking to make it slightly bigger and alter the shape, Tomlinson says. 

The ambitious, LMP1-inspired Akula, a 600bhp, V8-powered carbon-fibre creation first seen in 2019, “has pushed on massively this year,” Tomlinson says, but she concedes, “at the moment the development team have been focusing more on the race cars that we're developing for the end of the year…so the Akula and the G10 have had a bit of a step back". Ginetta will also be focusing its energy on increasing annual production from 100 cars to around 150 in 2024, with a view to potentially expand to 200 the year after. 


Amidst all this, Ginetta has shaken up its motorsport offering, streamlining and consolidating to three series - Ginetta Junior Championship, Ginetta GT Academy and Ginetta GT Championship. The company has also ended its longstanding TOCA partnership which saw its one-make series support the British Touring Car Championship. From 2023, Ginetta has been running its three series at the SRO’s British GT rounds, a move which has been a positive one, Tomlinson explained. 

“Moving everything onto the same package has been amazing because it means we've got the same hospitality set up, but we're just doing much less weekends, but we're doing the same amount of racing,” she said. 

Grid sizes are still a lot smaller than they have been historically, but they’re moving in the right direction. “Our grids have grown from the beginning of the year to now for our final round” Tomlinson noted. She’s also has had a first-hand view of what it’s like for a punter, by competing in the GT Academy herself.

“That was one of the main reasons I signed up originally because I thought seeing the customer journey on the ground as to what Ginetta can do to improve would be really, really helpful,” she said. The issue is she’s now “got the bug,” and is looking to step up to the GT Championship’s GT Pro class next year. 

The other issue is sibling rivalry. Racing runs in the family, with Ginetta owner and Amy’s father Lawrence Tomlinson being a former GT2-class 24 Hours of Le Mans winner, and her sisters Emma and Lucy also competing in the Academy in 2023. “I've been in the steward's office with one of my sisters before, and I don't think he really knew what to do with both of us," she recalled. 

"Sunday dinner at our family house is not good anymore!”