TVR Tasmin 200 FHC - The resurrection

Any readers of the Wedges section may be familiar with the story of this car but I'll do a quick summary.

I bought this in 2009 with a years MOT and used it for a year. It turned out the MOT wasn't the most legitimate and it was all a bit knackered. I replaced a lot of bushes, shock, brakes etc and took it on a few trips around Scotland.

It's quite a rare beast with apparently only 16 being made. It should have a 2.0 Pinto engine in it but it's had a 2.8 Cologne fitted at some point. I think they are rare as a slow 4 cylnder TVR that cost over 10k in 1982 was too much for most people. Anyway whatever I think it's a handsome old thing.



Unfortunately in 2010 life got in the way. We had a child, my wife was made redundant and the TVR was pushed to the bottom of the priority pile.

Roll on 12 years and I'm now working from home so we don't need two cars. I'm selling my get to work car and I'm going to get this old fella back on the road for its 40th birthday.

Unfortunately it looks like this at the moment.



I've done a fair bit of work to it already and I'll post that up shortly.

The main thing that put it off the road was a rotten exhaust system. With any other classic car this wouldn't be a problem, you can probably just buy a stainless system off the shelf. You can get them for Tasmins too....just not early ones that's got the wrong engine in it.

Even standard manifolds don't fit my car so I had to design and make the whole thing from scratch. I took inspiration from a system the factory did that had log manifolds. It's not doing performance any favours but it works.

I also had to move the engine into the centre of the engine bay as the previous bodger who fitted the engine had it offset by about 50mm. As you can see there's not much room for the manifolds.

I always fancied one of the wedge shaped TVRs when I was younger, so have a soft spot for them (and the weird 'upside down' revcounter some had). The 2.0 Pinto would have been familiar to me too since it's the same engine, probably very similar spec to that in my RS2000, though I can understand why someone put the V6 in it as it's a common engine in other TVRs too. Probably sounds better too.

Best of luck with the work, I'll be following with interest. I note that your 'before' pictures look quite similar to my RS2000 that's been stuck in my garage a good few years longer than your TVR. Hopefully I can start a similar thread about my project later this year.

I think a lot of the early cars ended up being raced.

Very interested to see this one progress given the effort you made with the Celica. Good luck, it is truly wedgetacular.

I never really got on with my DHC Tasmin, just didn't enjoy driving it. Always wished for a V8 and/or a FHC.

I do like seeing the early ones being brought back to life though and will follow this project.

There are a few rusty scabs on the chassis and the rear (inboard) brakes needed rebuilt so I dropped the diff out for access.

Obviously I can't put rusty stuff back on the car. Cleaning stuff up is messy and takes ages.

I'm going to use Rust EM121 Epoxy paint to see if that lasts longer than normal paint.







The chassis is mostly in very good condition. Remember this car is original and unrestored.

Nice project !

A while ago a good pal in Scotland asked me to look over a G reg S3 TVR. He wanted the car but I was a bit more reserved ....!
Anyway, after an AA inspection ( more of an insurance against the seller ) he took delivery.

To cut a long story short, I ended up getting the car back here to Co Durham and took it up to the local TVR specialist to get 'sorted out'.....

It was structurally fine, just needed a lot of retrospective maintenance to get it to where it should have been. About £4500 worth IIRC !!

Apologies for rambling on, but my point is that when it was sorted it was brilliant fun to drive: it had the 2.9 Cologne V6 ( IIRC) and the few times I drove it up and down to Hexham it was impressive....wheel spin in 3rd gear on a slip road....it was a bit wet to be fair !

I was very impressed with the handling on a long motorway section...at 90 leptons it felt so stable....especially as compared to my 1970 Lotus Elan S4 that I had at that time...( you could say opposite approaches to the same end !)

I shall read you progress with interest, as driving a TVR regularly will be a journey no doubt !

I think that looks fab. Well done and keep posting, such a striking car the old wedge :-)

Thanks for pointing me toward this thread. Chassis outriggers were a real problem on wedges - on my 350 they ended up almost non-existent. Yours looks in very good nick though, from the presumably relatively low miles?

The V6 surely gives a much more enjoyable soundtrack, also making this one a pretty special car. It looks great in that red and will be a real head-turner when it’s back out and about. For all the chatter about TVR reliability, a properly sorted older one is a very useable vehicle and also pretty easy to fix when gremlins do interfere.

Look forward to the rest of the story!