TVR's Italian move mooted

Rumours intensify around TVR's relocation

By PH Staff / Thursday, 26 October 2006 / Loading comments

TVR Sagaris' at Bristol Avenue

Rumours that TVR has cut a deal with Italian car designer and builder Bertone continue to intensify.

This follows the company's cataclysmic announcement that it's to leave Blackpool, the town that it's called home since 1947. All production staff will lose their jobs.

Just as bad as the jettisoning of the loyalty of the company's workers is the likelihood that TVR will lose its British roots too, the bulldog character of which it so ably represented.

There's precious little information officially from TVR but sources from within the company -- PistonHeads' researches suggests they're production staff -- say that the rumours carry weight. People PistonHeads has spoken to are unable to comment, redirecting requests for information to the company's new PR company.

Autocar yesterday ran a story with more detail. It suggested that, despite a secret meeting between Lotus boss Mike Kimberley and TVR's new boss Nikolai Smolenski, Italy is to be where the company's new products will be built.

New cars

Some 500 cars a year assembled from Italian chassis and body component makers in the vicinity of Turin could be built, according to Autocar.

Engines will come from UK specialist engineering company Ricardo, with whom TVR signed a deal in July, when it announced that it had signed an agreement with Ricardo to develop the Speed Six engine to Euro 5 emissions compliance. Incidentally, Ricardo also designed the engines for JCB's recent successful attempt on the world diesel-powered land speed record (see link below).

There will be new versions of the Sagaris and Tuscan, plus a fastback Tuscan GT -- and maybe even a TWR-developed Le Mans/GT racer.

Background

This all follows a volatile period for TVR, when orders allegedly fell to close to zero, lay-offs followed lay-offs, and announcements about a new plant vacillated between staying at Bristol Avenue, moving to a place outside Lancashire, and then cutting a deal with Blackpool council to stay in the town. It was only in August that the company said it would be moving to a new purpose-built home on Blackpool Business Park within two years.

It seems that none of this was enough to keep the firm in the UK, despite Smolenski spending his own money to make good the company's £11.8 million deficit for 2005, on top of the £15 million he allegedly paid for it in 2004. The 2005 loss was about 70 per cent of that year's £16.7m turnover.

One worker told the local paper: "We will come in tomorrow as usual, make a cup of tea and start playing a game of cards or watching a DVD for eight hours - that's all we have done for months. And we will wait until the 90 days is up and they'll close it for good. It's a shame but what can we do."

Reaction

The response from the TVR community to events has been huge. The TVR Car Club has expressed its support for the workers who'll lose their livelihoods. "We will continue to support the hard workers at TVR through thick and thin. I'm sure a lot of what has happened this week is still sinking in for many of them", said TVRCC chairman Jeremy Blandford. The club plans to go ahead with its celebration in Blackpool next year to mark TVR's 60th anniversary.

Dave Smart from Automedon, a consortium of ex-TVR factory technicians and craftsmen and which now services and fettles TVRs, said that he was disgusted with the way that the company was walking away from Blackpool.

"TVR is a Blackpool firm. This is just taking away the soul of the firm", he told the Blackpool Gazette. "I just feel for my former colleagues. It's hard to imagine what they're going through."

One ex-TVR dealer said he wasn't surprised, because Blackpool was cut off from the primarily Midlands-based automotive suppliers. Sports car dealer John McGlynn said that many others had moved form the area in similar circumstances.