Private company
Gordon-Keeble
Logo: Buch-t, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, via Wikimedia Commons3
Motor vehicle
Gordon-Keeble was a British car marque, conceived in Slough, then constructed in Eastleigh, and finally in Southampton (all in England), between 1964 and 1967. The marque's badge was unusual in featuring a tortoise — a pet tortoise walked into the frame of an inaugural photo-shoot, taken in the grounds of the makers. Because of the irony (the slowness of tortoises), the animal was chosen as the emblem.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0
Last updated Oct 21, 2026.
Overview
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Gordon-Keeble was a British car marque, conceived in Slough, then constructed in Eastleigh, and finally in Southampton (all in England), between 1964 and 1967. The marque's badge was unusual in featuring a tortoise — a pet tortoise walked into the frame of an inaugural photo-shoot, taken in the grounds of the makers. Because of the irony (the slowness of tortoises), the animal was chosen as the emblem.2
Products and brands
The car was readied for production with some alterations, principally a larger 5.4-litre (327 c.i.) 300 hp (224 kW; 304 PS) Chevrolet V8 engine and a change from steel to a glass fibre body initially made by Williams & Pritchard Limited and later in-house. Problems with suppliers occurred, and before many cars were made the money ran out and the original Gordon-Keeble Automobile Company Ltd went into liquidation.
About 90 cars had been sold at what turned out to be an unrealistic low price of £2798, £1400 lower than an Aston Martin or half the price of the cheapest Ferrari. Each car had two petrol tanks.
In 1965, Harold Smith and Geoffrey West bought the company and re-registered it as Keeble Cars Ltd. Production resumed, but only for a short time, the last car of the main manufacturing run being made in 1966. A final example was actually produced in 1967 from spares, bringing the total made to exactly 100. The Gordon-Keeble Owners' Club claim that over 90 examples still exist.
An attempt was made to restart production in 1968 when an American, John de Bruyne, bought the rights to the car, but this came to nothing, although two cars badged "De Bruyne" were shown at that year's New York Motor Show along with a new mid-engined coupé.
From Wikipedia’s article on Gordon-Keeble, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4
Timeline
Links
- WikipediaGordon-Keeble
- More imagesWikimedia Commons
- WikidataQ861187
Sources
The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.
- 1WikidataGordon-Keeble on Wikidata
- 2WikipediaGordon-Keeble on Wikipedia
- 3Wikimedia CommonsGordon-Keeble logo by Buch-t, CC BY-SA 3.0 de
- 4
- 5Wikimedia CommonsGordon-Keeble photo by Ralf Prien, CC BY-SA 2.5