MarcosGT

01

Origins

Jem Marsh and Frank Costin's Marcos GT of 1964 hid a heresy under its dramatic glassfibre skin: a chassis of laminated marine plywood, engineered by ex-de Havilland aerodynamicist Costin on aircraft principles — light, stiff, and cheerfully dismissed by rivals until it beat them. With Volvo and Ford power and a driving position like lying in a bath, the low GT became a 1960s icon and club-racing regular; a young Jackie Stewart raced Marcos machinery early in his ascent. Steel chassis eventually replaced timber for cost, and the shape survived decades of the company's deaths and resurrections. The wooden originals remain the connoisseur's Marcos — proof that unconventional thinking, properly stressed, could outrun convention at its own game.