Griffith Motors

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Griffith Motors
Griffith Motor Car Company
legal form Corporation
founding 1962
resolution 1966
Seat Plainview , Long Iceland ( New York )
Hicksville ( New York )
management Jack Griffith
Branch Automotive industry

Griffith 200
Griffith 400
Griffith GT

The Griffith Motors, Inc. was an American automobile manufacturer from 1963 to 1966 in Hicksville (New York) was established.

Company history

Griffith Motors was founded by New York auto dealer Jack Griffith. At the beginning of the 1960s, the company sold, among other things, small British sports cars of the TVR brand , which were manufactured in Blackpool by Grantura Engineering and were factory-fitted with four-cylinder engines from BMC , Coventry Climax or Ford of Britain . Encouraged by the success of the similarly sized AC Cobra sports car , in which Carroll Shelby combined a British AC Ace with a US eight-cylinder Ford engine , Griffith developed a comparably designed car based on the TVR Grantura . The car, known as the Griffith 200, was to compete against the AC Cobra in the US market. The connection to TVR lasted until 1965. In the second half of 1965 there were prolonged strikes by dock workers on the American east coast, which temporarily brought the trade carried out with ships to a standstill. The TVR Coupés sent from Blackpool, UK to the USA could not leave the ports, so Griffith Motors actually received no more vehicles. Griffith then no longer paid his British supplier, so that a central source of income was lost for Grantura Engineering. In September 1965 Grantura Engineering was insolvent and was liquidated. By then around 250 Griffith 200 and its successor Griffith 400 vehicles had been built. After the Griffith 400 was discontinued, Jack Griffith took over the Apollo GT sports car manufactured by Apollo International Corporation , which had no technical connection with TVR. It is a forerunner of Intermeccanica Italia, which is also sold in Europe . In 1966, Griffith ceased automobile production.

Models

  • Griffith 200 (1963-1964): a TVR Grantura Mark III with a 4.7 liter eight-cylinder V-engine from Ford from the Windsor series . Production volume: 190 pieces.
  • Griffith 400 (1964–1965): Successor to the Griffith 200. The 400 is based on the TVR Grantura 1800 S with an unchanged Ford Windsor eight-cylinder engine. Production volume: 59 pieces.
  • Griffith 600 or Griffith GT: Notchback coupé with plastic body and eight-cylinder V-engine from Plymouth . Only a few copies. Transfer of the project to the company Suspensions International , which sold the car as the Omega GT from 1967 .

literature

  • John Gunnell: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1946-1975. Krause Publications, Iola 2002, ISBN 0-87349-461-X . (English)
  • George Nick Georgano (Editor-in-Chief): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile. Volume 2: G – O. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 , p. 650. (English)

Web links

Commons : Griffith Motors  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mark Hughes: TVR Grantura, Griffith, Vixen & Tuscan . Classic & Sportscar, issue 1271989, p. 43.
  2. ^ Matthew Vale: TVR 1946−1982. The Trevor Wilkinson and Martin Lilley Years , The Crowood Press, Ramsbury 2017, ISBN 978-1785003516 , p. 18.
  3. ↑ a b Gianni Rogliatti: Frank Reisner's Intermeccanica - One of the Few That Made it , Automobile Quarterly in 1971, et seq S. 309th
  4. ↑ For the company's history, see Richard M. Langworth: Encyclopedia of American Cars 1930-1980 . New York (Beekman House) 1984. ISBN 0-517-42462-2 , pp. 667 f.
  5. ↑ Richard M. Langworth: Encyclopedia of American Cars 1930–1980 . New York (Beekman House) 1984. ISBN 0-517-42462-2 , pp. 669 f.