TVR engines. What do we expect?
Discussion
I mean the original design that Melling is said to have produced, which TVR are said to have changed to save costs, which may have resulted in an unreliable valve/cam-gear arrangement. JR mentions that TVR changed the head design, and also that the AC mods improve the situation, but don't put it back to the original design intent. Why is it that they cannot produce a head and valve/cam arrangement to the original design, or at least to achieve the original design intent? It may be expensive to tool-up for this, but if it is considered to be a sure-fire improvement, then I suspect it would be worth a lot of dosh to them?
red griff 500 said:
I mean the original design that Melling is said to have produced, which TVR are said to have changed to save costs, which may have resulted in an unreliable valve/cam-gear arrangement. JR mentions that TVR changed the head design, and also that the AC mods improve the situation, but don't put it back to the original design intent. Why is it that they cannot produce a head and valve/cam arrangement to the original design, or at least to achieve the original design intent? It may be expensive to tool-up for this, but if it is considered to be a sure-fire improvement, then I suspect it would be worth a lot of dosh to them?
I would assume that it is to do with the rumoured litigation between Melling and TVR that has been hinted at by comments on the forums and obliquely by Mr Melling, it would seem - TVR can't use the original design without admitting liability to pay Melling, but I assume that Melling can't use it in case it proves that TVR were not exclusively the intended customer for the design. Something like that, no doubt. That, and if TVR altered other parts of the engine (block, etc) it may not be feasible to mate the original design head and valvetrain to a production car.
cybertrophic said:
I would assume that it is to do with the rumoured litigation between Melling and TVR that has been hinted at by comments on the forums and obliquely by Mr Melling.
These rumours appear to be being spread by you. Is there any foundation in what you say? I am not aware that Mr Melling has hinted at any such litigation. Certainly not at his presentation at MW.
JR said:
I would assume that it is to do with the rumoured litigation between Melling and TVR that has been hinted at by comments on the forums and obliquely by Mr Melling.
These rumours appear to be being spread by you. Is there any foundation in what you say? I am not aware that Mr Melling has hinted at any such litigation. Certainly not at his presentation at MW.
No, they aren't started or spread by me - in reading the poasts regarding the Melling presentation, it was intimated (by Melling himself, if I remember correctly) that there was more than a little bad blood between TVR and Melling and that there was possibly a pending court case. I am more than happy to stand corrected if it is not the case. I have to say that my experiences of the car industry would lead me to believe it is highly unlikely that Mr Melling would not sue if there was any possibility of getting paid for his design by TVR - Automotive engineering consultancies are not the most forgiving bunch, regardless of how nice they may seem in person. The company I used to work for got over £3Million out of Mitsubishi when they plaigarised a direct-injection design for a cylinder, so I feel that a complete engine design is worth the court case if there is any grey area regarding ownership of/payment for the design.
The fact is however, that Melling provided a design that it is common knowledge Peter Wheeler then screwed him over. Whether there is a court case on the go is irrelevant. I would suggest that TVR are not using the original design to avoid being sued by Melling and that, quite likely, Melling's new design for the valvetrain is based on two things - 1) an unwillingness to use the original design (if it is technically possible) due to legal reasons or 2) The bodged TVR interpretation of the design renders the possibility of rebuilding the engine to the original design impossible. I would think that a bit of both is most likely.
JR said:
Which TVR are said to have changed to save costs.
Whyu do you say that? How did the design changes save any cost?
I would guess that the reason he said it was because there would be only two reasons for not sticking to a working design - litigation (i.e Patent infringement, or the possibility that the design is not yours to use) and cost. If there is no legal ramifaction involved in using the Melling design, then they must have cheapskated, simple as that, really.
cybertrophic said:
Which TVR are said to have changed to save costs.
Whyu do you say that? How did the design changes save any cost?
I would guess that the reason he said it was because there would be only two reasons for not sticking to a working design - litigation (i.e Patent infringement, or the possibility that the design is not yours to use) and cost. If there is no legal ramifaction involved in using the Melling design, then they must have cheapskated, simple as that, really.
This is a very narrow view which does not appear to be the case at all and is not what has been suggested by either Melling or rumours from TVR. Hypothetically have you considered pride, marketing and overheating issues for example?
JR said:
Which TVR are said to have changed to save costs.
Whyu do you say that? How did the design changes save any cost?
I would guess that the reason he said it was because there would be only two reasons for not sticking to a working design - litigation (i.e Patent infringement, or the possibility that the design is not yours to use) and cost. If there is no legal ramifaction involved in using the Melling design, then they must have cheapskated, simple as that, really.
This is a very narrow view which does not appear to be the case at all and is not what has been suggested by either Melling or rumours from TVR. Hypothetically have you considered pride, marketing and overheating issues for example?
Ok, let's look at those reasons...
1) If TVR had paid for a design that was good, then where is the pride in turning that prototype into a badly-built half-assed approximation of the original? No company in their right mind would go out of their way to build-in unreliability, which is precisely what appears to have happened in the case of the valvetrain in the Speed Six - it is fundamentally flawed. Melling has stated that the modifications he is doing with Autocraft take the valvetrain back to (as near as possible) the original design, so he can be proud of the design, but what have TVR to be proud of if they build an engine they know to be flawed and then sell it to the public?
2)Marketing....what is better "here is an engine that is powerful, reliable, built in-house to a design from a veteran F1 engine designer", or "here is an engine that we built in-house that is powerful (although not exceptional), unreliable and likely to cost thousands of pounds to repair at random intervals due to shoddy interpretation of the valvetrain in a design by a veteran F1 engine designer"? BMW made mileage by saying that the M3 straight six was half a McLaren F1 engine, even Pagani are keen to boast about being the only company other than McLaren F1 to get a custom built Mercedes/AMG engine, so there is nothing to lose by admitting they hired the best to design the Speed Six. I can personally guarantee that Ferrari (Road and Race), BMW, Mercedes, Honda, Mitsubishi, the VW Group (hence, Lamborghini, Audi and Bugatti, not to mention Bentley) all use the same engineering consultancy in Sussex to help design their engines, so it's nothing new in the motor industry.
3)Overheating issues...well, I am not entirely sure what you are trying to suggest, but in my experience weakening the valvetrain does not enhance engine cooling. Remember, we are not talking about cracked blocks or heads or the associated problems caused by insufficient coolant circulation - the Speed Six lunches its cam followers and valves. If anything, making the finger followers more substantial would prevent them warping at higher temperatures..... not to mention the fact that people would happily pay an extra two or three grand for the car if it meant getting valvetrain components that didn't appear to be made out of the sort of metal one normally associates with the exhaust on an Albanian minicab.
I am not a TVR hater, in fact I like the Speed Six - it's a great engine let down by some slipshod build quality. If TVR want to be taken seriously as a supercar manufacturer, then they need to rectify the faults with the engine immediately, not tinker about at customer expense. They have a Russian billionaire backing them, so the argument that they can't afford a bit of cash to build the damn thing right simply doesn't wash anymore. If people want a car that is quick and cheap, they will buy a Caterham, an M3, or a secondhand Ferrari. Especially as two out of that three will be bulletproof mechanically, with the third costing no more than a TVR to keep on the road. I hope that TVR take note of things like the survey done on here and the fact that more and more people are looking at solutions that don't involve paying TVR £5000 for an engine rebuild that doesn't cure the problem. If they don't, then their reputation may become irreparably damaged and I think that none of us want to see that happen. At the moment, the best TVR can hope for is to be seen as an incompetent bunch of clowns who can't seem to fix the problem, at worst they are squeezing money out of owners who have been sold defective goods and are happy to continue to do so while they concoct tales about all the faults being nothing to do with the design/build quality. I fail to see how all the good looks in the world can save a car with that kind of cloud hanging over it, so TVR needs to address the issue and do so publicly, making a big noise about it. After all, Afla Romeo made wondeful cars from the 20s until the 70s when a few badly-built models torpedoed them totally and their image has still never recovered fully - they are even now seen as a slightly shonky alternative to a BMW which has a nice engine in it, regardless of whatever they try to do. I think all of us on here would rather TVR just stood up and said "Sorry, we made a balls of it, but we've done it right now - see, there's a test car with 40,000Miles on the clock and no problems" - they could run that up in a week on a dyno, whilst thrashing the thing to within an inch of its life....so why don't they?
We have already identified the changes to some of the components. The head gasket water-ways was interesting (bigger holes round number 6). I have some new finger followers coming from Chris Cooke (he ordered too many), and with a spot of luck a couple of his old ones to check them against in relation to obtaining hardness data. The more I look at the design of the follower, and its dimensions, I am leaning towards the fact that it is friction causing these to fail, this may not be from oil starvation but more the fact that its loaded by the cam, and a 10mm diameter shim. So friction from above and below. I am going to need help on some mathematics here folks, on stress analysis. I can create a computer model of the components with know loadings, but I am unsure how to work out friction heat, and the changes to the metallurgy
As usual cyber you confuse length of response and repetition with insight.There is nothing new here and you have failed to respond to any of the responses detailing TVR's updates to the Speed Six
You claim substantial understanding of the car business and in particular knowledge of many marques who use a certain well respected UK consulatant. Fine-lets have the detail rather than the allusion.
Lets learn from you- I am keen to know the detail and your route to it so that I might have a better understanding.
You claim to like the Speed Six engine but criticise it in every post.Why not just buy one and discover why apparently sane people are prepared to put up with the cost-in your own words-of running a second hand Ferrari.I you do you will find they really are that good and perhaps have some understanding of the loyalty that TVR owners have for a very special marque.You can afford it-I am lead to believe from your posts you own and run Ferrari's
Personally I would love to see TVR and Mr Melling-who I admire greatly-resolve the problems amicablly. Do you think your posts are assisting or hindering this process?
>> Edited by sideways mostly on Monday 5th December 13:00
>> Edited by sideways mostly on Monday 5th December 13:54
You claim substantial understanding of the car business and in particular knowledge of many marques who use a certain well respected UK consulatant. Fine-lets have the detail rather than the allusion.
Lets learn from you- I am keen to know the detail and your route to it so that I might have a better understanding.
You claim to like the Speed Six engine but criticise it in every post.Why not just buy one and discover why apparently sane people are prepared to put up with the cost-in your own words-of running a second hand Ferrari.I you do you will find they really are that good and perhaps have some understanding of the loyalty that TVR owners have for a very special marque.You can afford it-I am lead to believe from your posts you own and run Ferrari's
Personally I would love to see TVR and Mr Melling-who I admire greatly-resolve the problems amicablly. Do you think your posts are assisting or hindering this process?
>> Edited by sideways mostly on Monday 5th December 13:00
>> Edited by sideways mostly on Monday 5th December 13:54
cybertrophic said:
2)Marketing....what is better "here is an engine that is powerful, reliable, built in-house to a design from a veteran F1 engine designer", or "here is an engine that we built in-house that is powerful (although not exceptional), unreliable and likely to cost thousands of pounds to repair at random intervals due to shoddy interpretation of the valvetrain in a design by a veteran F1 engine designer"?
The second option is so much of an over simplification to be correct and I don't know how you can verify that the first option is accurate. There is certainly mileage in saying this is a TVR engine.
cybertrophic said:
3)Overheating issues...well, I am not entirely sure what you are trying to suggest, but in my experience weakening the valvetrain does not enhance engine cooling. Remember, we are not talking about cracked blocks or heads or the associated problems caused by insufficient coolant circulation - the Speed Six lunches its cam followers and valves.
The valvetrain and the rumoured possible pre-production overheating are different issues.
sideways mostly said:
As usual cyber you confuse length of response and repetition with insight.There is nothing new here and you have failed to respond to any of the responses detailing TVR's updates to the Speed Six
You claim substantial understanding of the car business and in particular knowledge of many marques who use a certain well respected UK consulatant. Fine-lets have the detail rather than the allusion.
Lets learn from you- I am keen to know the detail and your route to it so that I might have a better understanding.
You claim to like the Speed Six engine but criticise it in every post.Why not just buy one and discover why apparently sane people are prepared to put up with the cost-in your own words-of running a second hand Ferrari.I you do you will find they really are that good and perhaps have some understanding of the loyalty that TVR owners have for a very special marque.You can afford it-I am lead to believe from your posts you own and run Ferrari's
Personally I would love to see TVR and Mr Melling-who I admire greatly-resolve the problems amicablly. Do you think your posts are assisting or hindering this process?
>> Edited by sideways mostly on Monday 5th December 13:00
>> Edited by sideways mostly on Monday 5th December 13:54
Well, aside from the personal abuse, which seems rife for anyone who does anything but toe the line, which doesn't bother me at all, I will answer the points you raised. I dont name the engineering consultancy I worked for because I am not about to betray any confidentiality regarding companies who may not want the details of what work they outsource. I am more than happy to discuss technical issues, but that is not the point I was making - TVR knew the engine had been altered from the optimum design when they built it and they are still expecting customers to foot the bill while they fumble for a fix. With all due respect to Autocraft and Mr Melling, it should not be the responsibility of third party companies and owners to create a viable fix to the problems TVR engineered into what should have been a great engine.
If Honda can use CAE to design VTEC engines that rev as high as the Speed six and not break, there is no reason that TVR could not have made an engine that self-destructs. Please don't raise the tired argument of "TVR are not as big as Honda", as the CAE software is not that expensive, their engineers are supposed to know their stuff and companies like Spoon can make racing tuned engines based on Honda blocks with 100Bhp/Litre and they are no multinational conglomerate. If motorcycle-engined kitcars can be reliable (if a little unweildy), then why can't a TVR? The point is that even a small(ish) company can make a viable product. If TVR couldn't build an engine that doesn't break, they should have sold it to the public - unlike race teams who expect to run an engine for maybe 300 Miles before stripping it down, members of the public expect to be able to drive to Tesco without it costing them five grand.
I *do* like the engine - I am always going to like a dry-sump high-revving straight six with no turbo-lag, but it is essentially TVR's attitude I have issue with - if you fit the Autocraft fix, or some other fix, which sorts the problems, it would be an all-time great, but *you* should not have to fit any sort of fix to make the damn thing work. Yes, it's powerful and revs well, etc, but it is too unreliable in stock form to be sent to market by any company that has scruples, especially when they ask the customers to foot the bill for fixing the faults.
Lord knows, I am happy to pay for reasonable to servicing/maintainence of a high-performance engine, but to have to expect a £5000 rebuild bill at any point due to a design flaw is unacceptable to any potential buyer in their right mind. Forget the fact that you might love the car/engine and look at it from a detached point of view - I think if you put on the "consumer" hat, it becomes obvious that, despite the obvious charms of the Tuscan with a Speed Six, it really is a badly flawed product that is not helped by a company that expects its customers to pay for its mistakes. The least that should happen is that *all* rebuilds caused by these issues should be done at cost to TVR, not to the customer - that at least would be fair. That is what R&D is about. That is what the race series was supposed to be for - to make sure things worked *before* selling to the public.
As far as Mr Melling and TVR go, they will do whatever they wish - after all, a large number of Speed Six owners have complained about being reamed by TVR on this forum and there has even been a survey to back up the failure rate rumours, but TVR still seems to feel that they are all down to driver error or bad maintainence.
Trying to intimate that I have some desire to see TVR fail, or that I hate the cars because I happen to tell a few home truths is not exactly what I expect when someone starts a thread asking what people expect from TVR engines. I feel that if any car in today's market cannot do 60,000 Miles without needing an engine rebuild (and no Speed Six has come close to that, as far as I can tell), then it really should not be sold as a road car, even a Ferrari doesn't need that level of work - just servicing and cambelts. To argue that the engine is too highly stressed is bullsh*t, too - turbo'ed cars such as the Focus ST are stressing low-tolerance components to deliver nigh-on the same 100BHP/Litre and they are cheap to service and if it went wrong within 100,000 Miles, people would be up in arms. I simply do not believe that anyone can defend the actions of TVR regarding this issue, regardless of what the car is actually like - it is the treatment of the owners in the face of an inherent fault in the engine design/build that is the most worrying thing.
I am not being biased when I say that the poll done on this site shows a very large percentage of owners have had one or more rebuilds due to the same fault and mainly at their cost, as opposed to TVRs - the numbers speak for themselves and the posts by owners were not written by me. That is also not taking into account the TVR-can-do-no-wrong brigade who would not report a fault to the survey and those owners who do not use the forum, so I would tend to assume that, even if the % failure rate did not go up, there would still be many more TVR owners paying for engine rebuilds that should really be down to TVR.
I love the specialised sports cars this country can produce, I think the Caterham csr looks like a great piece of kit, I think that the new Esprit will be special and I have a soft spot for the morgan aero 8. There is a history of small engineering companies building great engines (in fact, all NASCAR, Indy Car and most F1 engines are designed in the UK and merely put together elsewhere), hell my father even worked on the Coventry Climax and that was a firm whose workshops would be made to look stupid by the average school metalwork room, so it's not just a matter of money. This is also nullified by the fact that any competent engineer could buy a copy of the software Honda use for, if I recall, about £1500 per license and have exactly the same CAE for the valvetrains, etc - something that was not available when companies like Northdowns Engineering were working on race engines and supercharging/tuning road cars to order simultaneously in the 1960s, or when Colin Chapman started Lotus out of a lock-up garage. It is easy for any company with a PC and an engineer to design, prototype and test components 1000s of times before they even pick up a piece of metal, so it is reasonable to assume that a new engine should be more reliable, or ate least bett-er engineered than one designed 40 years ago, but TVR managed to go against logic for some reason I have yet too fathom.
The issue has to boil down to one of two things: either TVR knowingly changed the design to cut corners or avoid some legal issue or get away with using parts from a renault, etc - in which case they knew that they were weakening the Valvetrain and are thus culpable for their actions.... or, two, they are just plain incompetent and feel that blanket denial will make the problem go away. I don't know which idea upsets me more, frankly.
JR said:
Melling has stated that the modifications he is doing with Autocraft take the valvetrain back to (as near as possible) the original design.
When? Not to my knowledge and the mods do not do that anyway.
It was mentioned by Al Melling and the chap from TVR Craft at the seminar they held. It won't be a full fix, but as near as can be done.
cybertrophic said:
The issue has to boil down to one of two things: either TVR knowingly changed the design to cut corners or avoid some legal issue or get away with using parts from a renault, etc - in which case they knew that they were weakening the Valvetrain and are thus culpable for their actions....
This is nonsense extrapolated from Melling's somewhat self-interested (and a tad cynical IMO) claim that the Speed Six as is, is no good compared with "his design". Well, he would say that wouldn't he? It's laughable that this explanation is taken as gospel. It's bullsh1t and, frankly, should be dismissed.
cybertrophic said:
....or, two, they are just plain incompetent and feel that blanket denial will make the problem go away.
A bit closer to the truth here. There's nothing inherently wrong with the Speed Six design EXCEPT that it has proven to be very sensitive to component quality and skill/care in assembly. Pukka parts assembled by a proper chap works fine. Quite reasonably, you could say "that's no bloody good then is it?". But what if the intention (however much it might have fallen short in reality) is to do the darnedest to make it right?? CAE wouldn't show up such problems unless a simulation was created to ape the effects of not-quite-perfect parts/assembly. The competence issue could be levelled at the procurement operation and suppliers. Indifferent quality, cheap bits should foot a lot of the blame. As an engineer/CAE-savvy person you will know that loads on parts aren't a problem if the strength of the part is appropriate (loads on beams and all that) so Melling's somewhat disingenuous "side loads" blabber only really works on lay people. Another level of blame can be put at the feet of those responsible for communications. TVR DID respond to failed parts with (a) rebuilds (b) changing suppliers (c) trying to introduce procedures for checking Goods In etc. etc. on many occasions. Repeatedly Murphy's Law intervened and new suppliers dropped the ball or procedures failed because unconsidered scenarios were missed by a particular procedure. None of it was enough for a blanket recall, nobody knew what would go bang until it did. Too late then. Then stir in a bit of financial hardship at TVR and the effects that has on morale/diligence to introduce a bit more human error than when everybody's happy. It has all conspired to be a situation that ran away with itself. During the entire course of which, TVR has never uttered a word of sense. Which, of course, leads everyone's imagination to run away too. Generally converging on the same conclusion though: the engine was a lemon from the start, nothing's changed, what a bunch of
. And here we are today. To a man everyone acknowledges that TVRs are better made than ever before. The Sagaris is a rip-snorting hooligan of a car, the Tuscan 2 (esp the vert
) is drop-dead gorgeous. Speed Six engine parts are bought and assembled with paranoia. There's a monster warranty. Are the cars selling? No. The best TVRs EVER aren't selling. Go figure... cybertrophic said:
I don't know which idea upsets me more, frankly.
Indeed. It's a travesty because the Speed Six almost sent PW's TVR to the wall directly. And the Speed Six - indirectly - is sending NS's TVR down the same path. Even if you can find a genuine "TVR virgin" who gets the hots for a sexy Tuscan 2, their 'virginity' is lost the moment they ask a mate or a mate's mate for an opinion. Every flucking time, some wag will mention "Speed Six engines go bang a lot".
But hang on on mo, they do still fail, I know people who have relativly new cars who've had engine problems.
If the problem is just poor part quality and inferior workmanship then both these issues are possible to solve quickly and relativly cheaply. Why then are engines still going pop in cars less than 6 months old?
I was at the Melling talk and while I didn't agree with some of what he said, on the whole he came across as knowledgable and wanting to find a solution. I agree he's probably going to make some cash from the Autocraft deal so his words should be taken with a pinch of salt, it was also slightly suspect that the details of the fix weren't disclosed. But this could be dismissed with recovering their development money.
The main problem is that TVR aren't releasing any information about fixes, changes to design, problems found etc etc, leaving fertile ground for rumour mongering
Matt
If the problem is just poor part quality and inferior workmanship then both these issues are possible to solve quickly and relativly cheaply. Why then are engines still going pop in cars less than 6 months old?
I was at the Melling talk and while I didn't agree with some of what he said, on the whole he came across as knowledgable and wanting to find a solution. I agree he's probably going to make some cash from the Autocraft deal so his words should be taken with a pinch of salt, it was also slightly suspect that the details of the fix weren't disclosed. But this could be dismissed with recovering their development money.
The main problem is that TVR aren't releasing any information about fixes, changes to design, problems found etc etc, leaving fertile ground for rumour mongering
Matt
350matt said:
But hang on on mo, they do still fail, I know people who have relativly new cars who've had engine problems.
If the problem is just poor part quality and inferior workmanship then both these issues are possible to solve quickly and relativly cheaply. Why then are engines still going pop in cars less than 6 months old?
I was at the Melling talk and while I didn't agree with some of what he said, on the whole he came across as knowledgable and wanting to find a solution. I agree he's probably going to make some cash from the Autocraft deal so his words should be taken with a pinch of salt, it was also slightly suspect that the details of the fix weren't disclosed. But this could be dismissed with recovering their development money.
The main problem is that TVR aren't releasing any information about fixes, changes to design, problems found etc etc, leaving fertile ground for rumour mongering
Matt
Because as I tried to say a while back, TVR dont know much about process engineering and the trouble there is that contrary to popular and ignorant thought, it cant be done cheaply. At least not properly anyway and if it isnt done properly yer just throwing money down a hole.
From reading all this S6 stuff it sounds like TVR have been running around like headless chickens swapping bad parts for other bad parts. Surely they should be credited with a little more intelligence than that? Whatever the original design may or may not have been there is still no proof it was ever right in the first place – or have I missed that bit? Maybe the TVR effort is actually closer to the original design than we are lead to believe by those who now stand to gain by it’s faults.
Years on and after the R&D carried out by many owners it is now known for sure the design is flawed and TVR have failed miserably in putting it right. The company that now offers the “fix” have also(with the benefit of this same customer R&D) seen that the design is flawed and the “fix” could simply be a correction of the original flawed design. Maybe where TVR did go wrong was to try and come up with their own fix in house rather than sending it off to someone better qualified to come up with a 100% properly tested solution.
If I had spent millions on a car company and still had plenty more where that came from I would have shipped some engines off to someone like Cosworth on day one to put it right for once and for all. The factory would then be in a position to offer customers an upgrade for a sensible fee, everyone would be happy and by now TVR would be on the way up. Yes it would cost a lot but then so does buying a car company and watch it go down the pan. For that to happen after all the work that has already been done on build quality would be a real shame. The only reason TVR have got away with this fiasco for as long as they have is by trading on the goodwill of their loyal customers. It is now payback time.
Years on and after the R&D carried out by many owners it is now known for sure the design is flawed and TVR have failed miserably in putting it right. The company that now offers the “fix” have also(with the benefit of this same customer R&D) seen that the design is flawed and the “fix” could simply be a correction of the original flawed design. Maybe where TVR did go wrong was to try and come up with their own fix in house rather than sending it off to someone better qualified to come up with a 100% properly tested solution.
If I had spent millions on a car company and still had plenty more where that came from I would have shipped some engines off to someone like Cosworth on day one to put it right for once and for all. The factory would then be in a position to offer customers an upgrade for a sensible fee, everyone would be happy and by now TVR would be on the way up. Yes it would cost a lot but then so does buying a car company and watch it go down the pan. For that to happen after all the work that has already been done on build quality would be a real shame. The only reason TVR have got away with this fiasco for as long as they have is by trading on the goodwill of their loyal customers. It is now payback time.
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