Glass Sport Motors

GSM

Company type	Former
Founded	1958
Headquarters	Cape Town, South Africa
Key people	Bob van Niekerk co-founder Willie Meissner co-founder Verster de Wit designer

Glassport Motor Company (GSM) was a South African motor manufacturer based in Cape Town between 1958 and 1964. They produced the Dart and Flamingo sports cars. The name Glass Sport Motors is due to their use of fiberglass. GSM narrowly missed being South Africas first sports car maker, beaten by the GRP Protea. A Dart, Flamingo and Protea can be viewed at the Franschhoek Motor Museum in South Africa.

History

The company was founded by Bob van Niekerk and Willie Meissner in 1958 after Meissner went to England and stumbled upon fiberglass, a new technology at the time. He wrote a letter to van Niekerk asking him to come to England and further study fiberglass crafting. They came into contact with South African designer Verster de Wit (who was working on the Sunbeam Alpine) who helped them style their first car design and taught them the design process. The pair finally found an attractive design and produced a mould. One body was made and sold in England to fund Bob's trip back to South Africa. On returning to South Africa, they built the first prototypes of the GSM Dart. GSM's were mainly sold in South Africa and England although several seem to have made it to Canada.

The Dart

GSM Dart at Retro Classics 2019 in Stuttgart

The Dart was GSM's first production model. The car used a variety of engines including Coventry Climax Ford Anglia 100E and 105E as well as 4 fitted with Alfa Romeo 1300cc units nestled into a ladder type chassis with transverse springs at the front and coil springs at the rear. Cars had a glass fibre open two seat body fitted, but a hardtop was later available which had a reverse slanted rear window which later Fords also exhibited. Yet other versions included Alfa Romeo S.V. engines. Ernest Pieterse was the first to try this form of motive power. Requiring a machine for the Nine Hours Race (S.A.'s classic sports-car race), and having to beat such machines as Porsche Carreras, Ernest bought a Dart and fitted disc brakes, Alfa S.V.+ engine, etc. In the said Nine Hours Race, the car led for a while but retired with boiling brake fluid. This let John Love's Carrera into the lead but it too retired, or was delayed, and another Dart with 1,100-c.c. Climax engine stepped into the breach and was leading after nine hours. This was 1959. Since then Porsche Spyders and Lotus Fifteens have been used in the Nine Hours, rather squashing anyone with aspirations of further wins in a GSM Dart.

Pos.	No.	Drivers	Car	Entrant	Distance (km)	Pos.	Gr.	Div.
1st	6	Carrington / Fergusson	GSM Dart Climax	H. M. Carrington	922.959	1st	S2.0	Sports
2nd	13	van der Merwe / van Heerden	Porsche 356 Speedster	S. D. van der Merwe	908.797	1st	GT+1.5	G.T.
3rd	2	Mennie / Wright	MGA Twin-Cam mod.	G. E. Mennie	882.242	2nd	S2.0	Sports
4th	3	Fraser Jones / Fergusson	Porsche 550 RS Spyder	Team Porsche	877.897	3rd	S2.0	Sports
5th	15	Wilson / Wilson	Volvo Sport	O. G. Wilson	875.322	1st	T2.0	N.S.P.T.C.
6th	12	Pieterse / Lupini	Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint	Continental Cars	867.597	2nd	T2.0	N.S.P.T.C.
7th	16	Boyden / Lupini	Volvo Sport	H. C. Boyden	866.149	3rd	T2.0	N.S.P.T.C.
8th	24	Bramley / Celliers	Simca Montlhéry	Rillstone Motors	827.686	4th	T2.0	N.S.P.T.C.
9th	26	Lennox / Beerstecher	Simca Montlhéry	Rillstone Motors	818.673	5th	T2.0	N.S.P.T.C.
10th	22	Theobald / Smith	Saab 93 GT	Truck & Car, Vereeniging	815.455	1st	GT1.0	G.T.
11th	21	Langmuss / Frisby	Saab 93 GT	Truck & Car, Vereeniging	811.270	2nd	GT1.0	G.T.
12th	25	Woodley / Austin	Simca Montlhéry	Rillstone Motors		6th	T2.0	N.S.P.T.C.
13th	8	Gous / Love	Porsche 356 Carrera	D. S. Gous	800.327	1st	GT1.5	G.T.
14th	23	Burford / Porter	Fiat 1200	Lucys Motors	793.889	1st	T1.25	N.S.P.T.C.
15th	4	Pieterse / Bosman	GSM Dart Alfa Romeo	E. Pieterse	785.682	4th	S2.0	Sports
16th	20	Gilinsky / Aukema	Saab 93 GT	Truck & Car, Vereeniging	760.576	3rd	GT1.0	G.T.
17th	28	Porter / Reeves	Fiat 1100	Lucys Motors	740.298	2nd	T1.25	N.S.P.T.C.
	5	Lupini / Pheiffer	Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider	Scuderia Lupini				Sports
	7	Sacke / Humphries	MGA Twin-Cam	Premier St. Garage				G.T.
	9	van Niekerk / Meissner

The Dart was also manufactured at West Malling, Kent, England by GSM Cars where it was known as the GSM Delta due to 'Dart' being a registered trademark of Chrysler, the Daimler Dart also had to be renamed.

The Flamingo

GSM Flamingo advert

The Flamingo coupé was produced by GSM from 1962. The original intention was to use a forthcoming Ford V6 but it did not appear in time and so it was initially powered by a 1.7-litre Ford Taunus engine and later by the 1.5-litre Ford Cortina (non-crossflow) engine. Although similar in appearance, the Flamingo is a very different car. The front suspension replaced the transverse leaf springs of the Dart with two wishbones compressing Mini rubber cones, and later small coil springs. The rear was cleverly designed to stop one wheel spinning faster than the other under power through the use of different trailing arm setups on each side.

Owners include Gordon Murray who has a 1964 example.

Replicas

A Hayden Dart

In the 1980s a series of accurate replicas known as Levy Darts were built by Jeff Levy with involvement from one of the original trio, Verster de Wit. In the 1990s a visually similar mechanically different replica in the form of the Hayden Dart II was manufactured; these are still being made and have evolved to include independent rear suspension. Engine options are wide as with the original GSM's: the Kent 1600 and Toyota 4A-GE are the most common options, but there are examples with Mazda Rotary Turbo, Toyota 4A-GZE, and various other engines.

External links

• The GSM club website Archived 24 November 2018 at the Wayback Machine
• The GSM section of Bob van Niekerk's website
• Franschhoek Motor Museum Flamingo
• Franschhoek Motor Museum Dart