Al Melling Plans to keep TVR British
Discussion
the green hornet said:
BossCerbera said:
the green hornet said:
Look, can we be clear on this. Either...
Neither. Clear enough?
Errm, how about no!
How about this:
the green hornet said:
Al Melling designed fantastic V8 & straight six engines for TVR,
OK but inserting potentially before fantastic may have been more accurate.
the green hornet said:
but TVR CHOSE to replace certain components with cheaper or 'different' ones
amongst many other differences like out of balance castings
the green hornet said:
(is this where the 'intelligent property / copyright' subject comes up ref these engines?)
Yes
the green hornet said:
that have now shown themselves to not be 'fit for purpose' in these engines,
I think that that statement is fair for some of the parts but remember that the poor quality parts issue is only part(excuse the pun) of the problem (remember the lack of oil feeds etc.)
the green hornet said:
or else TVR kept his designs in their entirety but were let down by a foreign parts source / supply 'error'?
No! Am I alone in being sceptical about Al Melling?
About two years ago he was all over the motorcycle comics and they could not give him enough publicity.
He made claims of building fantastically fast and powerful motorbikes with V8 engines and saying that the current manufacturers did not know what they were doing.
He made claims to be developing motorcycle engines that ran tremendous power outputs with greater efficiency than the Japs.
He said that he had motorcycles only months from production that would change the way the world looked at bikes and they were a few months from being shown and were available to order.
He said that he had tens of years experience in building engines but his work was so secret that the major manufacturers would not let him tell anyone the projects he had worked on.
It seemed that every week there was a story about his latest secret project and companies that he was buying.
Nothing appeared and after a while the publicity stopped.
There seems to be a remarkable similarity to what is happening now with the Hellcat and now TVR and the magazines giving him publicity He seems to like publicity but only backs it up with sketches, ideas and models.
I don’t know much about the 6 cylinder TVR engine but I gather it does not have the greatest of reputations.
I have been in the automotive business for 30 year and I know of no one at a decent level that has worked with his company.
I shall wait to be proved wrong with sales of the Hellcat and his resurrection of TVR, let’s hope
About two years ago he was all over the motorcycle comics and they could not give him enough publicity.
He made claims of building fantastically fast and powerful motorbikes with V8 engines and saying that the current manufacturers did not know what they were doing.
He made claims to be developing motorcycle engines that ran tremendous power outputs with greater efficiency than the Japs.
He said that he had motorcycles only months from production that would change the way the world looked at bikes and they were a few months from being shown and were available to order.
He said that he had tens of years experience in building engines but his work was so secret that the major manufacturers would not let him tell anyone the projects he had worked on.
It seemed that every week there was a story about his latest secret project and companies that he was buying.
Nothing appeared and after a while the publicity stopped.
There seems to be a remarkable similarity to what is happening now with the Hellcat and now TVR and the magazines giving him publicity He seems to like publicity but only backs it up with sketches, ideas and models.
I don’t know much about the 6 cylinder TVR engine but I gather it does not have the greatest of reputations.
I have been in the automotive business for 30 year and I know of no one at a decent level that has worked with his company.
I shall wait to be proved wrong with sales of the Hellcat and his resurrection of TVR, let’s hope
Here's a thought then..
If TVR entered into a contract of sorts with Al Melling's company to have engines designed for them, why on earth would they choose to then 'meddle' with those designs?
Surely TVR would want some kind of guarantee of reliability of these V8 & straight six engines for their money!? It's hard to comprehend, but perhaps Peter Wheeler paid Mr Melling's company x-amount of money to design these engines, incl the legal ownership rights to them ref copyright/'intelligent property', then made the grave error of giving these 'designs' to John Ravenscroft's team to 'tweak' & turn into production engines for the Cerbera, Tuscan, T350, Sagaris & Tamora?
Perhaps this is where the small print of these agreements comes into it. Who would want to have such powerful, compact engines designed for them (esp c/w the best that Porsche etc could offer), but accept all responsibility if they went wrong within the 12 month warranty period as it was then!? Perhaps Mr Melling said he'd design engines for TVR, but he made sure that there would be no come-backs on his company should these engines start breaking with relatively low miles on them!?
If all of these broken V8 & straight six engines differ in their components to those that the Melling drawings specified, then surely we have our answer?
If TVR entered into a contract of sorts with Al Melling's company to have engines designed for them, why on earth would they choose to then 'meddle' with those designs?
Surely TVR would want some kind of guarantee of reliability of these V8 & straight six engines for their money!? It's hard to comprehend, but perhaps Peter Wheeler paid Mr Melling's company x-amount of money to design these engines, incl the legal ownership rights to them ref copyright/'intelligent property', then made the grave error of giving these 'designs' to John Ravenscroft's team to 'tweak' & turn into production engines for the Cerbera, Tuscan, T350, Sagaris & Tamora?
Perhaps this is where the small print of these agreements comes into it. Who would want to have such powerful, compact engines designed for them (esp c/w the best that Porsche etc could offer), but accept all responsibility if they went wrong within the 12 month warranty period as it was then!? Perhaps Mr Melling said he'd design engines for TVR, but he made sure that there would be no come-backs on his company should these engines start breaking with relatively low miles on them!?
If all of these broken V8 & straight six engines differ in their components to those that the Melling drawings specified, then surely we have our answer?
I'm more than happy to be proved wrong on this, but I simply don't see what future TVR has.
The brand is 'tainted goods' and the niche that TVR had a virtual monopoly on in the 90's is now extremely crowded and broad. Also, legislation and regulations are making it harder and harder (and more expensive) to build cars and I can only see that getting worse.
Of course as a long-time TVR owner I'd love to see the brand continue and I'd love to see exciting cars that I actually want to buy available for sale (which rules out everything since the Chimaera and Griffith, but never mind) but I just can't see it happening.
The brand is 'tainted goods' and the niche that TVR had a virtual monopoly on in the 90's is now extremely crowded and broad. Also, legislation and regulations are making it harder and harder (and more expensive) to build cars and I can only see that getting worse.
Of course as a long-time TVR owner I'd love to see the brand continue and I'd love to see exciting cars that I actually want to buy available for sale (which rules out everything since the Chimaera and Griffith, but never mind) but I just can't see it happening.
the green hornet said:
Here's a thought then..
If TVR entered into a contract of sorts with Al Melling's company to have engines designed for them, why on earth would they choose to then 'meddle' with those designs?
If TVR entered into a contract of sorts with Al Melling's company to have engines designed for them, why on earth would they choose to then 'meddle' with those designs?
Because according to TVR Mellings SP6 engine lasted 15 minutes and had to be re designed by John Ravenscroft.
the green hornet said:
Well if that's true, how come it took TVR a few years to realise that these engines only lasted 15 minutes!?
With the greatest respect Green Hornet, there is a Speed Six forum on PH in which this subject has been done to death.
1. Melling's original engine as supplied to TVR was shonky - that's why TVR endeavoured to fix it.
2. In some respects, TVR DID fix the problems they found but inadvertently introduced a couple of other problems.
3. The "cheap parts" allegation is a cheap shot. Sourcing from Asia/India was a growing trend in the late 90s. It made sense. Aston Martin bought some shocking V12 cranks in the same period. Melling's argument for a steel crank is a joke - why not go the whole hog, forget it's a £40K car and fit titanium valves, unobtainium pistons blah blah. What a load of tosh.
4. TVR was on the financial ropes from around 2000. Big decisions like major recalls were not an option (with hindsight they may have been less painful). In the rush to get cars out, valuable thinking time to review/test component quality was not available. TVR changed suppliers several times in a bid to curb the warranty returns.
Melling's "my engine was great, they fu©ked it up and filled it with cheap shit" is, at best, disingenuous.
Well either Mr Melling or TVR are telling lies then. He says his designs were fine (i was at his seminar in Middle Wallop in the Summer of '05), but TVR say it was flawed. Who do we believe?
Either way, TVR sold the cars with these engines, irrespective of who designed the engines, or which continent some of the components came from, that's their business not the buying public's. So if the engine fails within the warranty period then TVR are liable. There is no arguement is there.
Either way, TVR sold the cars with these engines, irrespective of who designed the engines, or which continent some of the components came from, that's their business not the buying public's. So if the engine fails within the warranty period then TVR are liable. There is no arguement is there.
the green hornet said:
Well if that's true, how come it took TVR a few years to realise that these engines only lasted 15 minutes!?
Because they assumed that they (Wheeler & Ravenscroft) had fixed it and as usual at TVR got the first year's Tuscan customers to do the beta-testing! They had to get the cars out having trailed them since 1997/8 and nearly all the 1999/2000 cars ended up having engine rebuilds. The valve train has geometric problems, the components weren't good enough (in many areas) and there is a suspicion the original design was to 3.6l, increased to 4.0 by increasing stoke and compression (can be risky).
There are suggestions that some automotive engineers are amazed the production engines lasted 1-2k miles, let alone 10-20k (both mine broke around 15k miles)!
The Melling lecture (see threads passim) implied TVR had fiddled with a perfect design, but it is clearly more complex than that. One thing unlikely to be disputed is that Wheeler & Melling had a big falling out - no tape records exist - as far as I know.
As in Medicine (I have some knowledge here), bad & avoidable outcomes have multifactoral systems & human causes. A small company being slightly too ambitious is another view. I think these different perspectives all contribute to the truth about the creation and fragility of the Speed 6 (which when it's running I love like many others).
Perhaps one day we may know the whole truth - don't hold your breath!
the green hornet said:
Either way, TVR sold the cars with these engines, irrespective of who designed the engines, or which continent some of the components came from, that's their business not the buying public's. So if the engine fails within the warranty period then TVR are liable. There is no arguement is there.
What's your point? Or dont you have one?
unrepentant said:
the green hornet said:
Either way, TVR sold the cars with these engines, irrespective of who designed the engines, or which continent some of the components came from, that's their business not the buying public's. So if the engine fails within the warranty period then TVR are liable. There is no arguement is there.
What's your point? Or dont you have one?
Yes i have a point, it's the constant advertisement of TVR's with re-built S6 & AJP V8 engines and 'thousands spent' on them that's frightened so many potential buyers of new TVR's off in the first place!!
Big surprise then (not), that since around the year 2000, sales have slumped, ownership has changed hands, and the owner (or should i say present owner!) has stopped production in the UK.. ..you see my point now?
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