Where Dreams Take You

July 09,2000

Some people say that Britain has lost all their great manufacturers: Rolls-Royces was taken over by BMW, Bentley by Volkswagen, Aston Martin and Jaguar by Ford. Here comes a time where the spirit of Britannia is beginning to be lost in the world of globalization, or is it? Not so, as Britain still retains one great car manufacturer who still remains independent of foreign control: TVR. What? You haven’t heard of TVR? Well, I can’t really blame you. TVR’s present target market is geared solely in Great Britain. Though it has a small following elsewhere in the world, it’s in Britain where the TVR is as part of a child’s exotic car dream as a Ferrari F50.

The Blackpool Story

The man behind TVR was Trevor Wilkinson. Born in Blackpool in 1923, he left school at the age of 12 to join a local garage as an apprentice mechanic. Later on, he set up his own shop and by 1947, he built his first special—a light weight two-seater based on a pre-war Alvis Firebird chassis and engine. Two years later, he built is second special, this time using a Ford side-valve for the engine. By then, he renamed his blooming business by abbreviating his Christian name to TVR. Thus, TVR was born.

Though the first TVR was made up for a tubular frame and light-alloy body with a 1.2-liter Ford 100E engine and a Morris Eight rear axle it was only in 1976 that the first true production TVR, the Grantura was made. The design set the distinctive TVR look that would last until the late 1970s.

However, despite financial woes, Wilkinson refused to give up and by 1960, the Grantura reached a total of 100 orders and thus prompted him to launch the Grantura Mk II with a bigger engine that clocked over 100 mph. TVR also improved the handling and the gearbox. By 1962, the TVRs had a stiffer chassis and a double wishbone suspension—a platform TVR would use for the next 10 years and serving 13 different car models from a inline-4 to a V8.

Financial problems continued, and in 1962, after stretching the company’s limited resource, Trevor Wilkinson left the company and finally collapsed by 1965. Arthur and Martin Lilley, who raced the Griffith bought the assets and founded TVR Engineering Ltd., in November of 1965.

Gradually, they increased the production output and improved the quality. TVR re-launched the Griffith as the Tuscan V8 (it reached a top speed of 170 mph!); the Vixen, a refined a lengthen Grantura and another Tuscan with a 3-liter Ford V6.

By the 1960s the company had financial stability and even profitability culminating in a move to the current factory in Bristol Avenue in Blackpool, England in 1970.

In 1971, TVR Engineering Ltd. officially moved out of the kit car market with the M-series. During this time, the company unveiled its first convertible, the 3000S and at the same time several TVR tuners came out to give a hand, among them Ralph Broad who turbocharged the Taimar V6 to give 230-bhp, doing the quarter mile slightly quicker than the Porsche 911 Turbo. TVR was the first British manufacturer to introduce turbo-charging in a series production car.

The current TVR look, which is the pear-shaped started to arrive in 1980 with the Tasmin, named after Martin Lilley’s girlfriend. The chassis was designed by ex-Lotus man Ian Jones and was powered by a 2.8-liter Ford V6 engine with fuel injection and 160-bhp. However, the cash outlay needed to produce the Tasmin as well as poor vehicle sales almost brought TVR again to the brink of collapse.

Peter Wheeler, a chemical engineer who drove a Taimar Turbo bought the company in 1980. His restructuring project involved dropping the plans for a Tasmin Turbo and instead looking for more power from Rover’s light-alloy V8 that produced 190-bhp

By 1986, Wheeler thought that TVR was beginning to loose its focus. The company, who used to create cheaper and powerful sports cars, was beginning to experiment with light-alloy components including Kevlar, which was very expensive. He then thought of the 3000s with a fuel-injected 2.9-liter Ford V6. It sported a retro look and soon became TVR’s bestseller.

By the 1990s, TVR reverted back to the curved look with the V8S and then the new Griffith. The new V8-powered Griffith easily beat the Porsche 968 Cabrio and Mserati Spyder in 1992 in both price and performance. The TVR Chimaera was faster still. In the same year, Wheeler announced that TVR Engineering would be building its own engine: the AJP engine. The rest is history.

In 1962, the original Griffith was born. The Griffith, regarded by many as TVR’s serious sports car, is actually a Grantura with a 271-bhp 4.7-liter Ford V8 engine. Apart from the front suspension modifications, bonnet bulges and twin tailpipes, it was difficult to see the difference between the Griffith and the Grantura, unless you clock them, because a Griffith can do zero to 100 kilometers per hour in 5 seconds.

Griffith
The Griffith is TVR’s breakthrough model, the one that enabled it to smash into the world of high-performance road cars. The current Griffith is known as the 500, and it stays true to the TVR formula of brute power and good looks.

The front looks similar to the Lotus Elise, but less froglike. While the Elise’s body hints at its lightweight approach to performance, the Griffith signals its intent with its muscular, ready-to-pounce look. Pounce it will, because it’s powered by a 320-bhp 5-liter V8.The Griffith rockets to 100 km/h in 4.3 seconds, and while an ordinary sedan might reach 100 km/h in 10.5 seconds, by that time, the Griffith is already at 160 km/h.

The chassis is constructed from tubular steel and composite body panels. Inside, it’s classic British-car looks with a gorgeous dashboard with wooden inserts. Not that you’ll spend too much time admiring the dash. You’ll probably be too busy concentrating on the driving; the Griffith does demand driver concentration, particularly in the wet. A slight prod of the throttle can rocket the car forward, whether or not the front wheels are pointed in the right direction.

Chimaera

For those of you who’ve seen Mission Impossible 2 and actually listened to its awful dialogue, you may have figured that the TVR lineup is named after mythological creatures: the Chimaera, as you now know, is monster with the head of a lion and a serpent for its tail.Not a very promising image for a sportscar, as you might think its rear end would be ready to bite you if you’re not careful.

However, the Griffith’s rear end is more likely to bite than the Chimaera’s. If you had to have a TVR for daily use, the Chimaera would be it. For one, you can attach a roof for bad weather, and the trunk space is generous.

Again the construction is reinforced-plastic body on tubular steel structure. It’s the only way that small manufacturers can continue to build cars like this. Not the Chimaera looks like it came out from a home-assembly kit car garage. It looks sturdy and well-engineered. Build quality and refinement are quite good.

Your Chimaera, should you decide to accept it, can come with any engine configuration, as long as it’s a V8.Your choice between two V8s, actually. The 5.0 is shared with the Griffith, so the 320 bhp is not surprising. If that’s a little too much—remember, this is the “practical” TVR—then the 4.5 liter might be a better choice. It makes a lot of power, too: 285 bhp at 5500 rpm. The torque, though, is surprisingly massive, even for a V8 of this displacement:413 Nm at 4500 rpm. That’s good enough to propel the 1060 kg car from 0-100 km/h in 4.9 seconds, to a top speed of 256 km/h.

Cerbera
One glance at the Cerbera and instantly, you’d know it’s British. It’s that Aston-Martin-like front end that evokes dreams of motoring away serenely into the countryside, knowing that massive power is available instantaneously with a press of the right foot.

The Cerbera is the coupe in the TVR lineup, and beneath its sweeping lines is 2+2 interior seating.This doesn’t mean that this TVR is softer than its stablemates, as this is also one potent car.

Two V8s are available with the Cerbera.The first is a 4.2 liter good for 360 bhp and 441 Nm, the second the all-grunt 4.5.Even the 4.2 is enough to accelerate the 1100-kg car from 0-100 km/h in less than 4.5 seconds.

Just in case one finds a V8’s burble intolerably noisy, the Cerbera is also available as the Speed Six. Named for its 4.0-liter straight-6 engine, it’s just a tick slower to 100 km/h than the 4.2 V8.

It’s funny how a change in headlamps changes the whole appearance of a car.

To distinguish itself from its siblings, the Cerbera 4.5 exchanges the classic British front end for an intriguing four-eyed face straight from anime.

If there’s one shortcoming in the Cerbera, it’s the confusing interior.Switches are not labeled—deliberately, as an owner would have to become familiar with his own car over a period of time.If you’ll lend the car to say, your, you’ll have to spend some time explaining which does what.BMW also took this know-your-car approach with its Z8.Still, you’re liable to forget such distractions as you fire up that mean and loud V8 and blast away into the distance.

Now if the standard Cerbera is all too tame for your tastes, not to worry.There’s a wild version available, known as the Cerbera Speed Twelve.As you might have guessed, this one is powered by a V12.Appropriately enough, zero to 240 km/h is achieved in 12 seconds flat!The 7.7-liter Speed Twelve is a weekend racer that you can drive to track events, smash the competition to bits, then drive home: all in a day’s play.

Tuscan

Peter Wheeler’s newest baby is the Tuscan, which was launched just this year. The Tuscan differs slightly from the rest of the TVR lineup, in that it comes only in straight-6 flavor. This was to enlarge the passenger space, particularly in the front leg area. This was a surprising move for TVR, since a V8 won’t even fit in the Tuscan’s engine bay. However, the driving position is much-improved, since there is now more room for proper placement of the pedals.

Peter Wheeler: We can put the exhaust down the passenger side and, talking of which, there are also advantages in complying with legislation because we can place the catalysts close to the engine. That much has been forced on us a bit because the emissions regulations are getting tighter all the time and where we once had an advantage over the competition because we could put the catalysts in front of a V8 engine, we can’t get them any closer than they are. It will become harder and harder to make the Rover based engines meet those regulations…

Besides, I’ve always liked the tradition of a twin cam straight six. Astons and Jaguars are a British tradition – although they didn’t use the layout for the reasons we have.”

The Tuscan itself is a two-seat development of the Cerbera. Much work has also been done on the suspension damping, to provide a compliant ride.

The Tuscan was designed to be driven everyday, but not necessarily to tempt one to use its performance all the time, unlike the Griffith with its always-growling engine. The Tuscan is more driver friendly, as the power builds gradually and evenly with throttle application.

Peter Wheeler says that TVRs are meant to be used extensively, and that they don’t sacrifice comfort for performance. “Two weeks touring for two people is the aim for all the two seaters. It’s where we set out in 1990.”

TVR has one of the fastest model ranges on the planet, and performance-wise, its cars can go head-to-head with the fastest Porsches and Ferraris.

What makes TVR all the more remarkable is that it designs and manufactures its own engines. In today’s world of tight emissions regulations, small-volume manufacturers usually purchase their engines from a larger company, simply because these engines have already passed emissions tests and are known to be reliable and durable. For a car manufacturer the size of TVR to produce its own engines : that is something special. That madcap yet thorough approach to building cars has ensured TVR a loyal following in Britain, and will surely command the world’s attention.

By Ulysses Ang | Photos courtesy of TVR and TVR Car Club

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