New TVR still under wraps!

[DonkeyApple]

8ball_Rob said:

AOK said:

T37 will be double the cost of most of the old T cars

What about inflation though? The Bank of England has a useful inflation calculator here. It only goes up to 2016, but apparently inflation has averaged 2.8% since 2000, so we can extrapolate ahead from 2016 to 2018 by multiplying by 1.028^2. This gives the following equivalent prices when new for the T cars. The last column shows the equivalent 'premium' that you would be paying for the T37, based on a purchase price of £89,999 in 2018:

Model	Year	Price when new	2016 equivalent	2018 (estimated)	T37 'premium'
Tuscan	2000	50,045	77,302.32	81,691.85	10.17%
Tamora	2001	37,410	56,779.81	60,003.99	49.99%
T350	2002	40,550	60,536.23	63,973.72	40.68%
Sagaris	2005	49,995	68,506.29	72,396.35	24.31%

NB in order to compare apples with apples, where I could find a range of values for 'price when new', I've taken the upper end of the range on the basis that the LE of the new car will be the most expensive version possible (all options ticked). These prices when new were just based on some quick Google searching - let me know if any of them are wide of the mark!

So it looks like the T37 is indeed more expensive, but nowhere near double the price of the T cars - at worst it's 50% more when compared to the Tamora, and only a 10% markup on the launch price of a Tuscan with all the options ticked.

Bear in mind you can't use CPI or RPI data to calculate any meaningful answer for any goods which are not reflective of or correlate to the 'basket of goods' each index is comprised of. There are no goods within either of those baskets that are reflective of a high labour, low mechanisation good such as a TVR.

The best you can really do is look at existing comparable goods and estimate that the TVR would be much more expensive than those of it were still being built the same way.

[8ball_Rob]

DonkeyApple said:

Bear in mind you can't use CPI or RPI data to calculate any meaningful answer for any goods which are not reflective of or correlate to the 'basket of goods' each index is comprised of. There are no goods within either of those baskets that are reflective of a high labour, low mechanisation good such as a TVR.

The best you can really do is look at existing comparable goods and estimate that the TVR would be much more expensive than those of it were still being built the same way.

All good points - I appreciate that this doesn't necessarily mean that if TVR were building the Tuscan today, they would be able to sell it at 80k. I was more using this as an illustration of the market sector that they were operating in at the time. It looks as though new car prices have risen at almost exactly the same rate as the official inflation figures would suggest:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-24...

Based on this, I think it's reasonable to suggest that if the T cars in the early 2000s were competing against other cars in the 35-50k price bracket, in modern-day terms this is equivalent to competing against cars in the 60-80k price bracket. So even if the new car isn't pitched at exactly the same market segment as the T cars, it's certainly not far off. Indeed, the cheaper post-LE versions may well occupy a price point slap bang in the middle of TVR's old niche

[essexstu]

Surely a good comparison for price levels is the 911 given the years in production. How much was the base 911 in 2000 compared to now? What percentage increase is the current price over prices in 2000 & apply that to Tuscan price?

[DonkeyApple]

essexstu said:

Surely a good comparison for price levels is the 911 given the years in production. How much was the base 911 in 2000 compared to now? What percentage increase is the current price over prices in 2000 & apply that to Tuscan price?

Being nerdy, the problem is that the 911 is built by robots, the TVR was built by an exceedingly inefficient human labour force. Each TVR sold had to cover the living costs and taxes associated with 3-4 labourers. The 911 is probably a total reverse of that. If TVrs were still being made today and in the same way as they were then they would have to be well over £100k just to cover that comically oversized labour pool cost and obviously no one would be buying them.

The new TVR is to be built with minimal labour costs and economically is such a wildly different product to the old ones that it is almost impossible to make comparisons on price other than it will be vastly cheaper than the old o es in these terms.

But I think that you are right that the only crude metric would be to compare the new TVR against a basket of competitors which would probably include Porsche, Morgan, Lotus and the like.

[TA14]

bullittmcqueen said:

"... The production limit for both cars and light vans / light trucks is 1000 per type each year in the whole of the EU. ... "

from http://www.dft.gov.uk/vca/vehicletype/ec-small-ser...

I was asking too and the answer i got was that the convertible will be a separate type (there seems to be some room for maneuver here), hence 2000 units with that approach. But that still means only 1000 Coupes per year in all of the EU. What happens post-Brexit is hard to tell as i cannot imagine that there will be free UK-volume and they can retain the EU-units in addition to that.

But approval strategy might change over time anyway.

Following the old TVR policy of putting differing bodies on the same chassis gave you Tam, Tus, T350, Sag, (&T400) giving up to 5,000 cars per annum. I imagine that Les will be very happy to have this problem.

[bullittmcqueen]

TA14 said:

Following the old TVR policy of putting differing bodies on the same chassis gave you Tam, Tus, T350, Sag, (&T400) giving up to 5,000 cars per annum. I imagine that Les will be very happy to have this problem.

Yep, works both ways. You will have obviously have costs for the approval-process of each type but then you get to sell a thousand cars of that type. But if you have 5 types, as in your sample, and 5000 buyers that all want the convertible, you are still only allowed to sell 1000 cars, not 5000. Also not sure what constitutes a "type".

[TA14]

bullittmcqueen said:

TA14 said:

Following the old TVR policy of putting differing bodies on the same chassis gave you Tam, Tus, T350, Sag, (&T400) giving up to 5,000 cars per annum. I imagine that Les will be very happy to have this problem.

Yep, works both ways. You will have obviously have costs for the approval-process of each type but then you get to sell a thousand cars of that type. But if you have 5 types, as in your sample, and 5000 buyers that all want the convertible, you are still only allowed to sell 1000 cars, not 5000. Also not sure what constitutes a "type".

Well, in that example you had the Tam, Tus conv and could easily have a Sag conv.. 5,000 conv cars is a lot. Lamborghini only sell 3,500 pa http://www.autoblog.com/2016/01/29/lamborghini-201... As above, this will be a nice problem to have

[bullittmcqueen]

TA14 said:

Well, in that example you had the Tam, Tus conv and could easily have a Sag conv.. 5,000 conv cars is a lot. Lamborghini only sell 3,500 pa http://www.autoblog.com/2016/01/29/lamborghini-201... As above, this will be a nice problem to have

True, but i guess the are aiming higher than in the old days and actually will succeed in getting 2k cars on the road. I'll do my share

[anonymous-user]

8ball_Rob said:

What about inflation though? The Bank of England has a useful inflation calculator here. It only goes up to 2016, but apparently inflation has averaged 2.8% since 2000, so we can extrapolate ahead from 2016 to 2018 by multiplying by 1.028^2. This gives the following equivalent prices when new for the T cars. The last column shows the equivalent 'premium' that you would be paying for the T37, based on a purchase price of £89,999 in 2018:

Model	Year	Price when new	2016 equivalent	2018 (estimated)	T37 'premium'
Tuscan	2000	50,045	77,302.32	81,691.85	10.17%
Tamora	2001	37,410	56,779.81	60,003.99	49.99%
T350	2002	40,550	60,536.23	63,973.72	40.68%
Sagaris	2005	49,995	68,506.29	72,396.35	24.31%

NB in order to compare apples with apples, where I could find a range of values for 'price when new', I've taken the upper end of the range on the basis that the LE of the new car will be the most expensive version possible (all options ticked). These prices when new were just based on some quick Google searching - let me know if any of them are wide of the mark!

So it looks like the T37 is indeed more expensive, but nowhere near double the price of the T cars - at worst it's 50% more when compared to the Tamora, and only a 10% markup on the launch price of a Tuscan with all the options ticked.

In the old days at work we based salary increases on the national inflation rate based on GDP/the price of raw steel and UK deficit etc, and wondered why staff left the small provincial consultancy company having had years of pay increases of between 1-2% and to three decimals.
Be interesting to redo these figures based on the increases in comparable cars, as others have mentioned.

[DonkeyApple]

bullittmcqueen said:

True, but i guess the are aiming higher than in the old days and actually will succeed in getting 2k cars on the road. I'll do my share

I've got to be honest and say that I can't envisage TVR finding anywhere near 2000 buyers a year in the Uk and EU. I hope they've based their business model on a fraction of that.

[8ball_Rob]

V6Pushfit said:

Be interesting to redo these figures based on the increases in comparable cars, as others have mentioned.

I fully agree - this was just a quick-and-dirty back-of-the-envelope calculation, and it would be better to look at actual price trends for comparable cars in the time since the last TVRs were sold.

Taking the AM Vantage as an example, the PH buyer's guide says that it retailed at £79,995 when launched in 2005. This What Car review quotes a starting price of £104,164 in 2017, equivalent to an increase of 30% since 2005.

Applying the same percentage increase to the 2005 price for a Sagaris gives a hypothetical 2017 price of £65,100. If £49,995 was the base price for the Sag, then it's not really fair to compare this to the bells-and-whistles LE price. It'll be interesting to see whether the follow-up base model of the T37 comes in significantly cheaper, although I suspect it won't be as low as 65k - perhaps more like 75k if we're lucky

ETA: running the 2005 Vantage price (£79,995) through the BoE's inflation calculator produces a 2016 value of £109,614. So the Vantage prices haven't quite kept up with inflation, but it still looks like a pretty good estimate.

Edited by 8ball_Rob on Tuesday 28th March 12:01

[GTrr]

essexstu said:

Surely a good comparison for price levels is the 911 given the years in production. How much was the base 911 in 2000 compared to now? What percentage increase is the current price over prices in 2000 & apply that to Tuscan price?

Important point: in the days of the Griff and the T cars the TVR's were way cheaper than 911's and had more power (to weight). That will not be the case anymore so it will have to be very good and/or very special to be able to compete. In terms of performance and handling it will be very hard to beat the Porkers and what have you at that price level.

[AOK]

8ball_Rob said:

What about inflation though? The Bank of England has a useful inflation calculator here. It only goes up to 2016, but apparently inflation has averaged 2.8% since 2000, so we can extrapolate ahead from 2016 to 2018 by multiplying by 1.028^2. This gives the following equivalent prices when new for the T cars. The last column shows the equivalent 'premium' that you would be paying for the T37, based on a purchase price of £89,999 in 2018:

Model	Year	Price when new	2016 equivalent	2018 (estimated)	T37 'premium'
Tuscan	2000	50,045	77,302.32	81,691.85	10.17%
Tamora	2001	37,410	56,779.81	60,003.99	49.99%
T350	2002	40,550	60,536.23	63,973.72	40.68%
Sagaris	2005	49,995	68,506.29	72,396.35	24.31%

NB in order to compare apples with apples, where I could find a range of values for 'price when new', I've taken the upper end of the range on the basis that the LE of the new car will be the most expensive version possible (all options ticked). These prices when new were just based on some quick Google searching - let me know if any of them are wide of the mark!

So it looks like the T37 is indeed more expensive, but nowhere near double the price of the T cars - at worst it's 50% more when compared to the Tamora, and only a 10% markup on the launch price of a Tuscan with all the options ticked.

Interesting observations.

My reference to price was made very casually without getting a calculator out, I concede it is not as much as 100% more. To be honest, the main point we were discussing and I was addressing was that since 2000 they never managed to produce more than 1,000 cars in a year (over 3 or 4 different models). So, the T37 (whether the same price, 10% more expensive or 50% more expensive in today's money) will be unlikely to be restricted by the SVA approval scheme any time soon.

On the subject of value though, I should also add that last year Les was interviewed saying the car will "start at £55k and launch in 2017".
Now we are told £90k and launch in 2018. Please note - still no factory, production line or even a development car.

By next year it may well be £110k with a 2019 launch.

That is fully speced 911 GTS money, F Type R and some change money, new V8 Vantage money etc etc..

[yajeed]

AOK said:

On the subject of value though, I should also add that last year Les was interviewed saying the car will "start at £55k and launch in 2017".
Now we are told £90k and launch in 2018. Please note - still no factory, production line or even a development car.

By next year it may well be £110k with a 2019 launch.

That is fully speced 911 GTS money, F Type R and some change money, new V8 Vantage money etc etc..

Yes, it has slipped. However, the pricing you've quoted is misleading. My understanding was that the current figure is <90k for a special launch edition, with all option boxes ticked, different materials used etc.

The 55k (which I doubt they'll get to) was for the base model, which I believe will be launched after the SE.

Edited by yajeed on Tuesday 28th March 14:43

[8ball_Rob]

AOK said:

Interesting observations.

My reference to price was made very casually without getting a calculator out, I concede it is not as much as 100% more. To be honest, the main point we were discussing and I was addressing was that since 2000 they never managed to produce more than 1,000 cars in a year (over 3 or 4 different models). So, the T37 (whether the same price, 10% more expensive or 50% more expensive in today's money) will be unlikely to be restricted by the SVA approval scheme any time soon.

On the subject of value though, I should also add that last year Les was interviewed saying the car will "start at £55k and launch in 2017".
Now we are told £90k and launch in 2018. Please note - still no factory, production line or even a development car.

By next year it may well be £110k with a 2019 launch.

That is fully speced 911 GTS money, F Type R and some change money, new V8 Vantage money etc etc..

I fully agree - if the price creeps up any further then I do think they'll struggle to pull in enough customers. However, if they can keep the LE under 90k and follow it up with a base model around the 75-80k mark, I think they have a fighting chance of making the new venture a success.

At that price, even if you could pick up a new 911 for a fraction less, I'm sure there are quite a few potential customers who would happily pay a premium for the all-important fact that it Isn't A Porsche. I was chatting to a friend last night who is in the market for a used Vantage, and we both agreed that neither of us would ever consider a Porsche simply because it isn't special enough - there's just too many of them around.

The way I see it, when I bought my Tuscan last year I effectively paid a premium for the fact that it isn't a Porsche. I could have had a ropey 996 for around 15k, but instead went for a ropey Tuscan at just over 21k. Less than a year later and I've already spent the thick end of another 10k on a top-end rebuild, lightened flywheel, new slave cylinder, engine mounts, decat, diff bushes, replacement alarm/immobiliser, new window encoder, refurbished door ECU, and a few other bits and bobs. Even knowing all that, I'd still make the same choice all over again!

[Byker28i]

AOK said:

On the subject of value though, I should also add that last year Les was interviewed saying the car will "start at £55k and launch in 2017".
Now we are told £90k and launch in 2018. Please note - still no factory, production line or even a development car.

By next year it may well be £110k with a 2019 launch.

That is fully speced 911 GTS money, F Type R and some change money, new V8 Vantage money etc etc..

bks! Les has never said the LE would start at £55k, he's mentioned the plans for a base models starting there but you'll never want it... The LE has always been suggested to be around £85K as a one off model, all the toys etc.

Bloody naysayers are starting to get to get tiresome

[AOK]

Byker28i said:

bks! Les has never said the LE would start at £55k, he's mentioned the plans for a base models starting there but you'll never want it... The LE has always been suggested to be around £85K as a one off model, all the toys etc.

Bloody naysayers are starting to get to get tiresome

I'm not a naysayer. I was one of the first people to deposit and am a huge admirer of TVR, having owned several.

However, I'm also a realist. A realist on how quickly costs can spiral and how, in relative terms, the competition are offering far better performing and (critically) better looking vehicles at similar money.

Just a few minutes ago an email was sent along the lines of... "we've only got a tiny amount of allocations left for the LE, if you have friends who want to secure one make sure they don't delay, they're selling out like hotcakes!!!"

Same line was dragged out through each of the preview sessions... and the deposit line has been open for 2 years. Label me a "naysayer" if you want, but I reckon they have closer to 400 deposits than 500. And perhaps that's because there are only 400 or so people actually interested in this very niche market sector.

[NuddyRap]

Working the profit margin back on these cars is interesting at the current price point.

In 1998, on all 1676 TVR sales, a profit margin of [url]£3.5m|http://www.fasttrack.co.uk/company_profile/tvr/[/url was recorded in their annual accounts.

This provided a margin of £2088 per car sold and is in line with what PW said, they they worked out their costs and put a small margin on top.

Keeping the maths simple, assuming an £80k car today had a margin of ten times that figure at £20k, 500 cars would see them recover an initial outlay of £10m. Why £10m? When you add together TVRs current assets as recorded in last year's accounts, they have about £3.5m in the bank, with £6m held in assets.

Maybe foolishly assuming £10m was the limitation of their initial investment fund, if you halve the margin to £10k, they need to sell 1000 cars to satisfy their debt. At £5k, 2000 cars. Over the period of the last few already expired years, a 0% return for a large commitment isn't particularly attractive, so to obtain a potential 100% return to all investors, the figures of sales or time obviously require doubling.

...But it serves as some sort of illustrative set of examples of cost recovery with nice round numbers.

In the longer term considering investment and reinvestment per new vehicle vs yield, trotting off a series of same-platform cars makes the most sense, else they'll struggle to make it worthwhile if it were to take say 4 years to just recoup a development cost of £10m selling 500 p/a at a £5k margin.

The £55k 'normal' car complicates calculations, and you'd assume a lower margin per vehicle (Perhaps the £5k I mentioned) in that instance to try and attract volume sales. You'd hope the launch version makes more of a margin to mitigate a potential lack of volume sales.

It's Lotus's dream to sell 1000 cars per annum again at the moment, so I'll be surprise if new TVR can hit and sustain that from the off.

Would they be able to put together each car an appropriate cost with those margins in mind? I'm not sure. In the dying days of old TVR with the Tuscan 3 NS concluded that he needed to sell each for £100k IIRC in order for it to make a profit.

Assets of £6m aside, given that humans are considered liabilities, if £10m is the extent of the funding, £3m isn't much of a development budget so they must have more than that. At a good rate employing half a dozen CAD monkeys can consume almost a third of that per year, before considering any engineers, consultancy costs by GMD, tooling specialists, lawyers and so on and so on.

As a round figure of £10m, without saying too much, to meet a major OEM's development costs, you need powers of 10 beyond the 1x10^7 that TVR have so far declared.

I'd love to be able to sit down and look at the new TVR's business model, because based on my fishing around and general feeling on the matter, I struggle to see it. The limitation is the "I" bit in there since my back-of-hand workings out are only as strong as their weakest part (Me).

I want it to be great, but... well....

[anonymous-user]

AOK said:

I'm not a naysayer. I was one of the first people to deposit and am a huge admirer of TVR, having owned several.

However, I'm also a realist. A realist on how quickly costs can spiral and how, in relative terms, the competition are offering far better performing and (critically) better looking vehicles at similar money.

Just a few minutes ago an email was sent along the lines of... "we've only got a tiny amount of allocations left for the LE, if you have friends who want to secure one make sure they don't delay, they're selling out like hotcakes!!!"

Same line was dragged out through each of the preview sessions... and the deposit line has been open for 2 years. Label me a "naysayer" if you want, but I reckon they have closer to 400 deposits than 500. And perhaps that's because there are only 400 or so people actually interested in this very niche market sector.

Question:
Are there really still unallocated LE's? The run was 500 so it would mean less than 500 deposits so far (obviously!)

Unrelated question:
The TVR website has no phone number, factory/business address (other than their accountants 'standard' address) so the only way of contacting is via one of those online reply forms everyone detests. Is this still the case when you place a deposit - do you get some sort of passport code to the inner sanctum?

[Hughesie]

NuddyRap said:

Working the profit margin back on these cars is interesting at the current price point.

to you maybe, i find it very dull, just build me a car please TVR