Leggiest Chim?

[ChimpOnGas]

900T-R said:

Owing to their simplicity, liberal use of componentry from mass market cars and low weight, TVRs are actually a better long-term bet than most. You might baulk at spending upwards of £20K to return a 15-20 year old one to 'zero mileage condition' - try that with a Porsche or Ferrari of the same era and you'd better put a '0' behind that number...

I definitely agree with that, I'm not sure how the restoration world will look in 20 years but I'm sure nostalgia will still drive a desire to drive today's cars. Two issues with that, firstly as you quite rightly point out the complexity of modern cars is such that restoring them will be a hugely costly process, secondly... with ever stricter emissions regs will we even be able to drive them at all anyway?

A Chimaera certainly scores well on the affordable restoration scale because it's a simple car.. even when compared to a Porsche of the same era, for example I shudder to think how much it would cost to restore a mid nineties Porsche 928 properly!!! The reason the separate chassis Chimaera is such a comparatively inexpensive restoration project lies in the fact it was really closer in construction to something from the 1960's. A Chimaera is basically a grown up mid sixties Lotus Elan with a much bigger engine, more interior space and some creature comforts thrown in as a nod towards making it a viable option to it's nineties competitors, all be it quite a brave left field option even when current.

By a strange twist of fate this improved back to basics classic British sports car recipe is just what the classic car industry is doing now as shown to us by the likes of Eagle & Frontline to name just two, it also represents one of the key reasons why a TVR remains such fantastic value for someone looking for the old school back to basics sixties driving experience without many of the compromises that come with cars from that era.

I knew if I'd bought an original sixties classic the first thing I'd do is put it on fuel injection, add a five speed box and uprate the brakes - With a TVR all this comes as standard in a car I purchased 7 years ago for less than £8k. Even at the time I was a long way off having the funds to buy a sixties Elan let alone the money required to add all the above improvements, anyway even in it's enhanced form I wouldn't fit in the damn thing anyway

There, so I do love TVRs... and with a passion, but that doesn't always make buying a high mileage one better than choosing a low mileage one as some are suggesting here . Such thinking is at best short sighted, each viewed example needs to be properly appraised in it's own right which I guess brings us full circle back to the irrelevance of mileage.

See, I've been typing that long I've managed to talk myself right into supporting the opposite side of the argument

[FoxTVR430]

[davetripletvr]

[Searider]

See, I've been typing that long I've managed to talk myself right into supporting the opposite side of the argument rofl


Just shows how irrelevant mileage can be.

A "low mileage" car with 50000 miles as opposed to a "high mileage" car with 90000 miles or 140000 miles is just as likely to need all the perishables and consumables replacing.

However, a high mileage car is almost always cheaper and perhaps less of a risk financially?

As you said (very eloquently in about 1500 words) "condition, condition, condition).

[900T-R]

I bought a high mileage TVR for two reasons:

• Easier to rebuild or replace worn components than to chase after all sorts of mysterious (and often intermittent) quirks that might not even have cropped up with the 'leisurely drive to the pub and back on a warm and sunny Sunday, garage ornament the rest of the time' crowd.

• A car that had done a whopping 18,000 miles between the last two MOTs can't be that unreliable...

The more I drive my TVR, the better it gets and vice versa...