Glassport Motor Company (GSM) was a South African motor manufacturer based in Cape Town, active between 1958 and 1966. 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, a Flamingo, as well as a Protea can be viewed at the Franschhoek Motor Museum in South Africa. The company built 266 cars in South Africa, along with an additional 76 Darts ("Deltas") built in England.[1]
The company was founded by Bob van Niekerk and Willie Meissner[2] in 1958 after Meissner went to England and stumbled upon fiberglass,[3] 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 decided on an attractive design and built a clay model.[1] A mould was created and 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 was GSM's first production model.[3] The car used a variety of engines including Coventry ClimaxFord Anglia 100E and 105E as well as four examples which were fitted with Alfa Romeo 1300cc units nestled into a ladder type chassis with transverse springs at the front and coil springs at the rear. The cars had a glass fibre, open two-seat body fitted. A hardtop was later made available, with a reverse slanted rear window which later Fords also exhibited.
Yet other versions were fitted with Alfa Romeo Sprint Veloce (SV) engines. Ernest Pieterse was the first to try this – when looking to prepare a machine for the Nine Hours Race (South Africa's classic sports-car race), and having to beat such machines as Porsche Carreras, Ernest bought a Dart and fitted disc brakes, Alfa SV 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 an 1100cc 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.
The Dart was also manufactured at West Malling, Kent, England by GSM Cars between 1961 and 1962. British-built examples are known as the GSM Delta - Daimler had also planned to call their SP250 Roadster 'Dart', but had to desist as this was a registered trademark of Chrysler's and GSM followed suit. 76 examples were built in the UK; together with about an equali number imported, around 150 GSMs ended up in the UK.[4]
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
GSM
The Flamingo
GSM Flamingo advert
The Flamingo coupé[5] 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.[6] 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.[7]
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, the late Verster de Wit.[1] 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 GSMs: 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.
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