I wouldn't say LGW is easy to get to,
In fact with a car it's a royal pita
My only experience with going LGW was years ago when I was travelling JFK-TLV via LGW, when I checked in at JFK I was told that my flight from LGW to TLV was delayed several hours due to a strike at TLV airport. I asked if I could depart later out of JFK, so I can spend more time with my family, rather than sitting around at LGW, to which I was given the OK, but was put on a flight to LHR and was told I would be transferred to LGW.
Once I arrived at LHR I went to the BA transfer desk to inquire about the transfer, where I found out that the flight was restored to it's original time, and was about to depart in a little over an hour, so they wouldn't transfer me, but offered me to go to TLV on an evening flight. Being that I was just going to TLV for one day, I just grabbed my boarding pass, went outside to a taxi and asked him to get me to LGW as fast as he could.
Taxi driver really tried hard, I don't know what the USD-GBP conversion rate was then, but I just gave him whatever USD I had on me in cash (probably a little less than the actual fare) and dashed into the terminal, and got quite fast to the gate. The flight ended up being delayed a little, as many people didn't get the news of it being restored to original time, so everything ended up OK. Though I did witness first hand the horrendous traffic going from LHR to LGW.