Formed by the four car-mad Walklett brothers, Bob, Ivor, Trevor and Douglas, the first Ginetta was built in Essex in 1958. The company built both competition and road cars, all using glassfibre bodies and steel frames, until the going got tough for specialist car manufacturers in the mid-1970s, after which they kept going by refurbishing existing Ginettas.

After the Walkletts retired in 1989, Ginetta was sold to a Sheffield consortium and production moved north, where the new G20 and G32 were launched. In 2005 the company was acquired by LNT Automotive and production moved to Leeds, from where new model launches are planned.