RE: TVR's rebirth - can it work? PH Blog

[Camoradi]

I think the key to the success of the new car will be reliability. There are plenty of people with the money and desire to own a car which is fast, loud, and a little out of the ordinary, but would be put off by the first sniff of a reliability issue, and buy a Porsche, Aston etc as a perceived safe bet.

TVR need to convince potential buyers that the new car will work as intended.

[900T-R]

DonkeyApple said:

It's going to have climate control. There will be ABS and traction, if not airbags. The engine will be run by a far superior ECU so all of that side will be smooth and predictable with almost everything under the bonnet being controlled by it. I doubt that the chap who trims the car will be some minimum wage tard who just slaps his glue brush all over the place either. In reality, today it would be rather difficult to build a TVR of old.

'Being properly put together' and 'providing a raw and intense driving experience' aren't mutually exclusive - in fact, a healthy dose of the former would be a great help in being able to enjoy the latter more

[swisstoni]

900T-R said:

DonkeyApple said:

It's going to have climate control. There will be ABS and traction, if not airbags. The engine will be run by a far superior ECU so all of that side will be smooth and predictable with almost everything under the bonnet being controlled by it. I doubt that the chap who trims the car will be some minimum wage tard who just slaps his glue brush all over the place either. In reality, today it would be rather difficult to build a TVR of old.

'Being properly put together' and 'providing a raw and intense driving experience' aren't mutually exclusive - in fact, a healthy dose of the former would be a great help in being able to enjoy the latter more

This is TVR were talking about here. They have to give no excuse to the lazy hack or pub bore, who never even sat in one, to dredge it all up again. So, bits not falling off is job number one.

[900T-R]

swisstoni said:

This is TVR were talking about here. They have to give no excuse to the lazy hack or pub bore, who never even sat in one, to dredge it all up again. So, bits not falling off is job number one.

Exactly

[DonkeyApple]

900T-R said:

DonkeyApple said:

It's going to have climate control. There will be ABS and traction, if not airbags. The engine will be run by a far superior ECU so all of that side will be smooth and predictable with almost everything under the bonnet being controlled by it. I doubt that the chap who trims the car will be some minimum wage tard who just slaps his glue brush all over the place either. In reality, today it would be rather difficult to build a TVR of old.

'Being properly put together' and 'providing a raw and intense driving experience' aren't mutually exclusive - in fact, a healthy dose of the former would be a great help in being able to enjoy the latter more

But if the cabin isn't filling with fumes, the engine doing weird things due to a crappy ECU and other things not working because of bad wiring what's left to actually be 'raw'?

If a car can get you down to Le Mans without gassing you, boiling you and keeping you in a constant state of worry as to whether it will restart after a petrol stop then it is a positively civilised and luxurious car.

I guess 'rawness' is a sliding scale and a subjective one. Personally, I would struggle to find a well build car with modern electrics, abs, traction, modern seats raw in the slightest but rather luxurious.

[The Surveyor]

DonkeyApple said:

....Is TVR going to reverse the global trend of the last decade?

I'd be interested in why they won't ultimately need an auto option as it would certainly be nice to think a premium sports car builder could actually sell in volume without one.

I don't think they need to reverse any global trends, they simply can't compete with the global automotive giants on an equal footing so there is no reason for them to even try.

They need to follow the successful philosophy of the 1990's TVR by providing an alternative to the mundane, sufficiently left-field to be interesting and desirable, but not too extreme to limit their market appeal. Lotus have survived by doing it and they have cars in the same cost bracket as the new TVR, Ginetta have survived with a greater 'track' bias, and further up the chain McLaren are doing it with their 570s / 540c range. All small manufacturers selling something a little different to the mainstream, selling to the 'enthusiast' market. In the specialist 'enthusiast' market, a push button roofs or a self-shifting 'box won't be as important as they are to Mercedes' ability to shift their latest SLK or Porsche to sell their latest Boxter.

[900T-R]

DonkeyApple said:

If a car can get you down to Le Mans without gassing you, boiling you and keeping you in a constant state of worry as to whether it will restart after a petrol stop then it is a positively civilised and luxurious car.

Ehm, you know they're not supposed to do any of that anyway - not even old-school TVRs. After having been in this particular stratosphere for the best part of a decade, I am pretty sure that myth is being kept alive by lazy mechanics and unscrupulous sellers...

[Ozzie Osmond]

The Surveyor said:

They need to follow the successful philosophy of the 1990's TVR .

At the start of the 1990s,

• Mazda didn't build sportscars
• BMW didn't build sportscars
• Mercedes didn't build sportscars
• McLaren didn't build sportscars
• Lotus only had the Esprit
• Porsche only had the 911
• Aston only had the old V8 Vantage

It seems TVR pulled a rabbit from the hat by replacing its dreary "S" series cars with Griff and Chim - at a good price.
Lotus subsequently performed the same trick when it abandoned the front wheel drive Elan and pulled Elise from the hat - at a good price.

Neither these companies nor anyone else has really managed to repeat that trick. Yes, there have been limited volume "trackday specials" [Ariel, KTM, Ultima] but for practical purposes no successful "basic sportscars" for road use.

Artega?
Farboud?
Ginetta G60?
Spyker?
Weisman?

[HarryW]

Cant believe I've only just found this thread, good back read.

To those that say V8V owners are not TVR owners would be surprised to note a lot of V8V owners can probably add TVR to their previously owned list.

Looking forward to the customer group meeting in August for deposit holders to hear it all first hand. I suspect at that point a lot of LE build slots will become available and transferred to the bogo car, just on current predicted LE pricing.

[Fire99]

I'm going to make a small comparison of TVR with Triumph motorcycles..
Moving aside from how good each's product was when the companies closed their doors (TVR 2006, Triumph (Meriden) 1983), when Triumph returned in the early 90's, there were three key points in my book..
A) The product was pretty competitive (not shatteringly so but good)
B) The manufacturing process was very efficient
C) The product was very reliable and put aside the fears of the slightly 'hit n miss' build of the last of the Meriden bikes..

In my opinion, the early 90's Triumphs were if anything slightly over engineered but in the most part, Triumph has been a resounding success....

TVR, if they are doing behind the scenes what they claim in public, may be doing a similar thing, using a very efficient and respected design / manufacturing model to ensure the product ticks all the boxes that people will be focussing on with a very powerful magnifying glass!

Edited by Fire99 on Tuesday 17th May 12:14

[The Surveyor]

Fire99 said:

I'm going to make a small comparison of TVR with Triumph motorcycles..
Moving aside from how good each's product was when the companies closed their doors (TVR 2006, Triumph (Meriden) 1983), when Triumph returned in the early 90's, there were three key points in my book..
A) The product was pretty competitive (not shatteringly so but good)
B) The manufacturing process was very efficient
C) The product was very reliable and put aside the fears of the slightly 'hit n miss' build of the last of the Meriden bikes..

In my opinion, the early 90's Triumphs were if anything slightly over engineered but in the most part, Triumph has been a resounding success....

TVR, if they are doing behind the scenes what they claim in public, may be doing a similar thing, using a very efficient and respected design / manufacturing model to ensure the product ticks all the boxes that people will be focussing on with a very powerful magnifying glass!

Edited by Fire99 on Tuesday 17th May 12:14

Exactly this, they don't need to do anything hugely different, it just needs to be better that TVRs of old.

[900T-R]

The Surveyor said:

Exactly this, they don't need to do anything hugely different, it just needs to be better that TVRs of old.

Spot on. It seems, however, that the traditional TVR blind spots of production engineering and attention to detail were high on the current team's list of priorities when they commissioned GMD with developing the new car.

[The Surveyor]

Ozzie Osmond said:

The Surveyor said:

They need to follow the successful philosophy of the 1990's TVR .

At the start of the 1990s,

• Mazda didn't build sportscars
• BMW didn't build sportscars
• Mercedes didn't build sportscars
• McLaren didn't build sportscars
• Lotus only had the Esprit
• Porsche only had the 911
• Aston only had the old V8 Vantage

It seems TVR pulled a rabbit from the hat by replacing its dreary "S" series cars with Griff and Chim - at a good price.
Lotus subsequently performed the same trick when it abandoned the front wheel drive Elan and pulled Elise from the hat - at a good price.

Neither these companies nor anyone else has really managed to repeat that trick. Yes, there have been limited volume "trackday specials" [Ariel, KTM, Ultima] but for practical purposes no successful "basic sportscars" for road use.

Artega?
Farboud?
Ginetta G60?
Spyker?
Weisman?

So they need to launch something equally special don't they? Les Edgar is much more a 'car' man than Peter Wheeler was, and so far hes done all the right things including getting the right people around him and not making wild speculative claims. 'Success against the odds'

[LordGrover]

If a repost, apologies. It was last year - interesting view here: driving.co.uk.

[Fire99]

The Surveyor said:

Exactly this, they don't need to do anything hugely different, it just needs to be better that TVRs of old.

In my not entirely humble opinion, (and I'm a TVR nut!) TVR made fundamentally great cars.. Griff, Chim, Cerb, Tuscan, T350 (perhaps their best allround), Sagaris, all great cars...

But,

the cars needed development not just replacement with another car that then needed development.
they relied too much on a willing and supportive customer base who would tolerate cars that required too much remedial work.
The Speed 6 in particular was a woeful mistake in creating a public perception that TVR's not only went wrong but now when they did, it would happen after low miles and at great cost to the customer.. Engine rebuilds at 20 something K miles?? Totally unacceptable in the marketplace which they were competing.

Whether the above is true, partially true or utter nonsense, I'd say a large percentage of the 'TVR' buying public would believe it to be true.. Those issues need to be better than average, almost brilliantly better than average when the new car arrives..

[Fire99]

LordGrover said:

If a repost, apologies. It was last year - interesting view here: driving.co.uk.

It's a good article (though a year old now).. Obviously if I'm gonna nit-pick, it was sold to Nicolai in 2004, not 1994..

[900T-R]

Fire99 said:

the cars needed development not just replacement with another car that then needed development.

Exactly this. But then again - you could never call old TVR a customer-driven business - it was very much PW's train set and if you bought into it, you were just along for the ride...

[The Surveyor]

Fire99 said:

..... the cars needed development not just replacement with another car that then needed development.
they relied too much on a willing and supportive customer base who would tolerate cars that required too much remedial work.

You mean like Nicoli did when he stopped production for 6 months in 2003/4 to make improvements across the whole production. It was all too little too late, but the later cars were much better in quality terms.

Still, you are right in that the new car needs to be spot-on from the launch.

[Byker28i]

900T-R said:

DonkeyApple said:

If a car can get you down to Le Mans without gassing you, boiling you and keeping you in a constant state of worry as to whether it will restart after a petrol stop then it is a positively civilised and luxurious car.

Ehm, you know they're not supposed to do any of that anyway - not even old-school TVRs. After having been in this particular stratosphere for the best part of a decade, I am pretty sure that myth is being kept alive by lazy mechanics and unscrupulous sellers...

Drove mine around belgioum last year, going again soon. I don't recognise these issues spoken off. Sounds like lazy owner syndrome.

[900T-R]

Nikolai had the right instinct when he took over the business (and if he hadn't, the message of industry insiders was clear and often enough published for him to notice), but I think he might have relied too much on throwing money at the symptoms rather than formulating a comprehensive and consistent vision on where TVR would need to go - which is fair enough when you're young with no prior experience in automotive manufacturing. Unfortunately without a clear vision of what to do, there's only so much time you can spend on running after fires and extinguishing them to the best of your abilities before the money runs out...