In 1947, Trevor Wilkinson from Blackpool, UK built an alloy bodied two-seater sports car for himself based on an Alvis Firebird chassis.
Wilkinson and business partner Jack Pickard then started TVR Engineering, (TreVoR) and embarked on a journey into the car building business.
The first production TVR was built in 1949 as an alloy-bodied two seater sports car with a tubular chassis.
In 1953 TVR introduced the idea of a GRP body (Glass Reinforced Plastic) on a steel backbone chassis and this method of construction continued throughout the life of TVR.
In 1965, due to financial difficulties, ownership passed to Martin Lilley and again in 1981 to Peter Wheeler.
Wheeler was a TVR customer and as the saying goes ‘liked the company so much he bought it’.
Many say the years of Wheeler ownership were the heydays for TVR. During this time some amazing and outrageous cars were produced. //www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho5XGTLp3D8
V8‘s were the order of the day and were sourced from a couple of manufacturers, Holden and later Rover (with TVR reworked heads) and in the ‘90‘s they developed their own alloy V8, straight 6 and V12 engines.
The Wheeler years mean the most to me. I remember as a boy, going to the British Motor show in the ‘80‘s and seeing the then new TVR Tasmin. Outrageous to look at and even more amazing to hear that tuned Rover V8 power the thing into the distance. Music to your ears.
TVR’s were renowned for being a ‘real mans car’ which loosely translated meant they didn’t have ABS, Traction Control or air bags and the build quality was generally crap.
TVR also had a successful history in circuit racing.
In 2004 TVR was sold to Nikolai Alexandrovich Smolensky the son of an extremely wealthy Russian private bank owner.
To set the scene for the Smolensky clan, when their bank collapsed in 1998 wiping out their investors savings, Alexandra Smolensky was asked what he owed his investors and he replied: “dead donkey ears”.
What a lovely family then to take control of a great British iconic sports car manufacturer.
Smolensky promised to keep TVR a British company but in 2006 inevitably announced that body production and final assembly would move to Turin Italy.
The shit well and truly hit the fan in the UK and around 300 TVR owners gathered in London in protest to show their disgust.
What actually happened was Smolensky broke the company up into pieces and killed it.
I would liken to a spoilt child getting a toy for Christmas then getting bored and taking it apart, leaving the pieces all over the floor as he moves on to the next toy.
TVR was yet another body blow for the now all but defunct British car manufacturing industry.
Think about this for example. One of the last cars TVR made was the Sagaris. It was as mad as a box of frogs with crazy styling and a 400bhp straight 6 which pushed the car from 0-62mph in 3.7 seconds and on to a top speed of 185mph.
The Sagaris was striking, powerful, handled really well and was actually built pretty well which was a new feature for a TVR.
And all this came for the paltry sum of just £50,000.
That represented incredible value for money.
TVR specialist companies have since sprung up to service, maintain and modify existing TVR’s, mostly staffed by highly skilled ex TVR employees.
Laughably, Smolensky has reinvented TVR. This time, based in Italy, they are not building new cars but overhauling customer cars.
As an example, they will take your existing TVR and make it ‘new again’ by dropping in a new 6.2L 426 bhp LS3 V8, a reinforced 5 speed gearbox, differential and drive shaft and a full re-trim and repaint for the ridiculous price of £100,000.
When i first read about the rebirth of TVR and the ridiculous prices they wanted to charge i thought it was a joke.
Who in their right mind would spend £100k refurbishing a used Cerbera that could be bought for £10,000? I expect the answer is nobody but we’ll wait and see…….