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2026 Winner
Nominated by: Carl Pereira (who also presented the award this year)
Gerald started working for Peter Day at Daytune, the now almost ‘legendary’ Lotus dealership in Cambridge in 1984. While Peter’s interest was Elans this meant that Gerald spent his time working on the more ‘modern’ Lotus cars of the time, those being the Elite, the Esprit and later the Eclat and Excel. He was joined some years later by Neil as an apprentice, with whom he still works.
At the time I owned (and still do) an Elan Sprint so was a regular visitor to Daytune for both parts and advice.
After Peter sold the company , it passed through various hands and Gerald eventually set up on his own in 2004 in Newmarket, Suffolk trading as GST Performance along with Neil. I reconnected with Gerald in 2014 on a Lotus Elan Sprint group visit organised by Tim Wilkes (the go to source for anything related to the early Elans).
In 2018 that we bought an Excel having been impressed with one a friend had in the late 1980s. Unlike some other Lotus cars, Excels were affordable and had a reputation for being reliable. Four seats also made them practical! While happy to tinker with the Elan, the Excel was a bigger car so we started to use Gerald and Neil to maintain the Excel and later the Elan. There’s only so much you can do, lying on the ground under a low car.
Living near Cambridge, Newmarket was not too far away and easy to get to. I have heard of people coming much further distances to get their cars worked on at GST and even the Lotus Factory at Hethel would contact him to resolve problems they were unable to fix, such is his knowledge and reputation.
Over the years Gerald has owned a number of Lotus cars and currently owns one of the last Excel Celebration Models which is often seen parked up in his workshop.
Being a small company of three, Gerald, Neil and Masie (who looks after the office), GST Performance does not advertise or need publicity as they are always very busy and their customers tend to stick with them for a long time.
Gerald works on cars from the 1960s to the early 2000s, so cars with limited electronics which require experience and knowledge to maintain rather than computers, so finding engineers with his practical experience is getting more and more difficult.
I was pleased to be able to hand over the Gerald the Oliver Winterbottom Award this afternoon, it was well deserved for a person who has spent over 40 years working on the ‘older’ Lotus cars, in particular the 4 seater Lotus cars. Although the award is to Gerald, credit must also be given to Neil and Masie who have supported him at GST Performance since it started in 2004.
All photos by Carl Pereira.
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