Meet The Peerless GT: The Sports Car That Shook The Racing World

Oct 09, 2023

The Peerless GT made its debut at the 1957 Paris Motor Show and then rocked up to the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans a year later to win its class.

Imagine we're back in the late 1950s and looking at the Peerless GT for the first time. We would have no knowledge it would soon shake the racing world with a surprising 16th-place overall win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, just a year after the company was born. And categorizing the British, hand-built fiberglass-bodied four-seater Le Mans-winning grand tourer was a little tricky. Was it a performance sedan, a sports car, or perhaps, a general-purpose coupe?

This dilemma must have been one of the coolest things about the Peerless GT back then — Jaguar, MG, Aston Martin are all names that generally pop up when enthusiasts talk about British race-winning sports cars. Compared to these big-name British brands, Peerless is a small, unknown nameplate.

So, you can imagine the astonishment at watching this car place 1st in its class at the 1958 24 Hours of Le Mans. The surprising victory forced the automotive world to rethink what it meant to be a "big brand" because, after all, Britain's most popular exports moved a tiny number of cars compared to real biggies like GM or Toyota. So, how did Peerless do that? You aren't the first to wonder.

Related: 10 Things You Forgot About The 24 Hours Of Le Mans

Firstly, there are lots of "Peerless" around the world unrelated to the British automotive brand we’re discussing here. There's a volleyball club in Peru, a financial service provider in India, a Mexico-based record label, a UK brewing company, and even an American automobile manufacturing company and several others with the name "Peerless." None of these share relation with the Berkshire-based Peerless Cars Ltd, which lived for three years between 1957 and 1960.

It wouldn't be the first or last nicely done fiberglass-bodied British sports car to cross over the pond to America, but the Peerless GT is definitely a rare and historic British machine because very few got made in total — 352 to be exact. After shutting down in 1960, the company got a new lease on life in the same year when one of the original founders, Bernie Rodger, resurrected and rebranded it as BRD (Bernie Rodger Development) Ltd, renaming the Peerless GT as "Warwick."

The renaming is a bit of a misnomer, since the Peerless GT was originally named "Warwick" in its prototype stage. John Gordon and James Byrnes were the rest of the founders, with Rodger as the car's designer.

The production version of the Peerless GT featured the drivetrain of the 1955 – 1962 Triumph TR3 British roadster that the Triumph Motor Company developed as an evolutionary model of the Triumph TR2. It rode on a tubular space frame chassis comprising a de Dion tube rear suspension wrapped in a photogenic fiberglass body. Though the four-seater delivered an impressive performance, the production was cost-prohibitive, which got passed to the customer.

Plus, the car didn't look that good if compared to similarly priced models offered by big-name brands. However, in later "Warwick" form (also known as the Phase II version), the car received significant improvements that included revised bodywork. The Peerless GT stunned the world because, like a star that materialized out of nowhere, it burned very brightly and then retreated into oblivion, all very briefly.

There does exist a connection between the British brand and the American marque of the same name. The Berkshire facility once housed the subsidiary of the American automaker producing WWII armored cars. With the support of key decision-makers at Triumph, the young automotive startup tried to avoid looking like a clone of the Triumph TR3.

One of the ways they did this was to position the Triumph-sourced 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine within a full arc-welded tube frame nest, improving the structural strength significantly, which was necessary to manage the 105 mph top speed and 100 horsepower. Mated to a four-speed transmission, the engine generated 117 lb-ft of torque and propelled the car to 60 mph from rest in 10.9 seconds. The gearbox used a Laycock overdrive system that allowed for a full seven gears of fuel saving.

Cosmetically, the Peerless GT stood out from the Triumph automobile by adding six inches to the overall length as well as a 5 inch wider track, a De Dion rear axle design (instead of the TR3's live axle), and of course, that photogenic fiberglass body. The choice of fiberglass instead of traditional steel construction is the idea of the firm's accountant because fiberglass was considerably less expensive at the time.

Related: 10 Things Every Gearhead Should Know About The Le Mans Classic

Imagine a newcomer that showed its first car at the 1957 Paris Motor Show, showing up at Le Mans the following year to win its class and finish 16th overall. The Peerless GT did exactly that and shook the racing world while at it. To understand how that could’ve happened, you might want to look at the three men behind the car.

John Gordon was an amateur racer and Rolls-Royce vendor, and good with numbers (he suggested the fiberglass body). James "Jimmy" Byrnes was a club racer hungry to race in a bespoke machine and, just maybe, sell some to finance his racing habit. And the third, Bernie Rodger, was a seasoned racing engine builder and tuner. The roll call may not strike you as a crack team, but the motorsport passion is evident. The trio were able to get Triumph to supply them with the TR3's 2.0-liter engine and four-speed gearbox because Byrnes, also a restaurateur, knew several Triumph board members, who frequented his restaurant, on a first-name basis.

Also for consideration is the Peerless GT's tubular steel space frame wrapped in a fiberglass body, all contributing to its extraordinary lightweight of 2,401 lbs. So, the combined experience of the Peerless GT's fathers meant the car possessed a performance DNA, leading to the decision to enter two Peerless GT works cars at the 1958 24 Hours of Le Mans.

No one, including the Peerless GT team, could’ve envisioned the car shaming the impressive roll call in its class, including Maserati, AC, Lotus, and Ferrari. Peerless probably went there just to make a showing and get a bit of attention, but ended up getting all the attention. The orders started pouring in after the Le Mans class win, and Peerless, being a small company with limited resources, struggled to keep up with demand. Production sadly ceased on the sports car in 1960 with around 325 models made.

Philip Uwaoma, this bearded black male from Nigeria, has written more than two million words in articles published on various websites, including toylist.com, rehabaid.com, and autoquarterly.com. After not getting credit for his work on Auto Quarterly, Philip is now convinced that ghostwriting sucks. He has no dog, no wife- yet- and he loves Rolls Royce a little too much.