Man in the driving seat when it comes to business

Lawrence Tomlinson has a very different background to the smooth American, who was previously a salesman at Playtex and Lever Brothers. The Garforth businessman, who is worth about 300m and who made his fortune through running care homes, building them and devising their IT systems, is an engineer by training.

But like Kiam, he has used success in one industry as a springboard into investing in one of his passions. While Ginetta is an excuse to have some fun, it is no rich man's plaything. It's a way to make some money and restore the image of a long-standing British brand.

To do this, Mr Tomlinson has made a series of changes since buying the car marque in 2005. He moved production to a 80,000 sq ft factory at LNT Group's headquarters, in Garforth, Leeds, and set about improving the quality of the drivers' experience in several ways, such as improving the chassis design.

Subsequently, Ginetta launched the G50, in 2008, to mark the brand's 50th anniversary, built a landmark electric sports car, the G50EV, and turned Ginetta into a 4m turnover business with about 40 staff.

"Where does it fit into the group?", Mr Tomlinson said. "It probably doesn't fit in at all. It is a standalone business now and we make money on everything we sell."

He wants to keep the brand exclusive, so it makes about 300 cars a year, of which it sells about 100 in Britain, with the rest sent abroad to the likes of Hong Kong, Germany and Italy. Each vehicle sold will need replacement parts over its lifetime, which Ginetta can supply.

Mr Tomlinson has also raced the cars himself. Trophies fill the LNT boardroom – Mr Tomlinson and his two co-drivers steered the Team LNT Panoz Esperante to first place in the GT2 class of the Le Mans 24-hour race just three-and-a-half years after he first took up the pursuit.

Ginetta's success – on the road with Tomlinson, with Nigel Mansell, who raced the Ginetta Zytec with his two sons, at Le Mans, and with a host of junior drivers to whom it supports, as well as off it – meant the marque was able to buy Farbio earlier this year.

The small supercar manufacturer's development had stalled and that's when Ginetta stepped in. Mr Tomlinson said the deal, for an undisclosed sum, was attractive because it was a "great proposition" to clients, good value and British. It also gave the Yorkshire company an entry into the road car market, with Farbio becoming Ginetta Supercars.

"Farbio is another Kiam story. It was struggling. They had developed what I think is a fantastic product but it was going to die.

"They had spent four years developing the car and spent about 4m but they could not get it into production. The banks were about to close in but we have given them the tools they need to get the car into production. Chris Marsh (Farbio's managing director) was trying really hard to make it work and I hope I can make it more of a success. If you can keep the cost base down then you can make some money out of it."

Plans are under way to make the Farbio race car suitable for use on ordinary roads in the US, and Mr Tomlinson has been there to begin the certification process.

While the integration of Farbio has been smooth, with Mr Tomlinson saying his ideas "very aligned" with those of Mr Marsh, then the development of Ginetta's electric car has hit a few bumps.

Last year, Ginetta was turned down for a 1m development grant by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) but the change of Government will surely raise hopes that the car, which has been driven by former motor sports star John Surtees through the full length of the Channel Tunnel, could win backing.

George Osborne, then the Shadow Chancellor, visited Garforth in February to see the G50EV and, while he didn't make any promises, said he was considering opening a green investment bank which would fund innovative green products.

Mercedes-Benz and Mitsubishi, the German and Japanese car giants, have built electric cars and both have been helped, in development or sales, by their national governments. It leaves Mr Tomlinson railing against the disparity.

"We have a product that works and they have a product that competes against that. We have helped develop electric cars around the world."

The disappointment over the grant is, however, only a part of the longer story of the Ginetta, which is what appealed to Mr Tomlinson when there was a chance to buy it.

"The thing I was looking for was the heritage, the history and the badge which I could then develop.

"We improved the quality of the existing product and gave the customers a better proposition. We have taken it to where it is today – it is unrecognisable."

The Technology Strategy Board has so far escaped the axe of

the coalition's austerity drive, however, meaning perhaps Mr Tomlinson and Ginetta could still win support for the electric car.

It would mark a new chapter for the business and mean the realisation of a hi-tech idea of which even Victor Kiam, another polymath and a great innovator himself, could hardly have believed.