22 AMAZING TVR factory photos from 1982.

[TasminTR7]

Hi, I just got 22 factory photos from 1982 of the wedges being made, taken by Adrian Marrow when he was looking around the factory for an architecture course he was doing way back in 1982 both fhc and dhc being made and a few Taimars in for servicing. These photos must be rare now, so thought I would show them enjoy.

[adam quantrill]

Nice one!

Love the haircuts and toshes.

[ElvisWedgeman]

Excellent and very interesting. I wish I could have been there when they were being made. Fantastic.

Tony. TCB.

[adam quantrill]

Tony - surely you were only a wee baby all those years go! ;^)

[ElvisWedgeman]

adam quantrill said:

Tony - surely you were only a wee baby all those years go! ;^)

In1982 I was in my prime. 26 years of age, flared trousers and platform shoes. Elvis had only passed away five years earlier and I was driving a Datsun 260Z+2, and shared a V12 e-type+2 with my brother. TVR were just beginning to enter the super car performance car market and although I was aware of them, there were bad rumours about their build quality. Also I always associated TVR with track racing rather than a road car. I was still a bachelor. No wife and no children so I had the means to buy one but never did. It wasn’t after many years later when my brother in law bought a 420 SEAC that opened my eyes to TVR. So there you have it, I was no wee baby.

Tony. TCB.

[colin mee]

Love the photos. Who would have that the transit van would be worth as much as the tvr .lol

[rev-erend]

Nice.

Thanks for sharing.

[The Hatter]

Fabulous pictures! Very interesting....

[RCK974X]

1982 - Looking for something different after having had a few Triumph 2500 saloons. I had looked at TVRs but they were very expensive.
M series were nice, especially the 3000M....hadn't seen a wedge yet.

Tried a few sports cars, Lotus Elites were gorgeous, but too small, even M was a bit cosy for me ...
even tried a nice a Jensen Healey (OMG, how much would that be worth now ?)

So I bought my first kit car instead .... and a rusted Vitesse for the bits ... and had a 2500 engine and gbox ready in the shed.

I remember that Winter was bloody cold in Manchester....

Didn't know then that the TVRs were built just up the road in Blackpool.

Yes, I'm old....

Edited by RCK974X on Sunday 12th November 18:54

[Tasmin200]

Fantastic photographs thanks for posting them. My car was made in 1982...makes you wonder if it's there!

[TasminTR7]

I am glad people like them, i wish i could travel back in time and spend the day there in 1982 just looking around the factory in wonderment as they were being made. The photo's themselves must be rare to see on the public forum's etc, i bet quite a few 1st owners went to the factory as they do now to see there cars being made and of them a few would take photo's (a long time before digital so at most taking 24 to 35 shots proberbly a lot less) and most of these photo's will now be in a attic or cubard long forgotten as the owners went through countless other new cars every few years, so to find 22 is great. This all started when i read an artical in July Classic and sports car with Oliver winterbottom talking about the Tasmin and the reasons why the car had this and that all the details, a very interesting artical, and then in the next issue in August a man called Adrian wrote in the letters page how much he had enjoyed the artical and that as a student he had been round the factory in 82 and had taken alot of photo's with one tiny photo next to his letter showing a dark blue Tasmin just like mine, so i wrote to the editor asking if i could see them via email he then put me in touch with Adrian who emailed them to me i then asked his permission to publish them on here etc. The yellow Tasmin outside the factory must be a very rare colour i have not seen any that colour on an early car before.

[sonnylad]

Great photos, thanks for sharing them

[mrzigazaga]

Thanks for sharing them Martin, The rare never before seen factory film show that we had at this years fest showed a lot of this...It showed them jumping up and down on the shell to separate them from the mould...
Scary to think though that this is what we sit on...oh and the seat of course...


Ziga

[TasminTR7]

Thats ok, it was well worth doing just for getting the chance to see 22 photo's of the wedges being made all those years ago and the more people who get to them the better. Sounds like i missed a great film of the TVR factory at the fest as well wish i had seen it.

[TasminTR7]

Got some more info on the photo's. John Mleczek used to work in the body shop in 82 and he is the one cutting out the rear side window on a fhc in one of the photo's, he still knows another body shop man Peter Carroll (the man with the tosh) in the photo a big close up of him cuttting out a part of trim who has just had his 60th birthday this year so he would have been 25 in 1982. The other body shop men there are Peter Draper, Steve Broxen, Mick day, Ronnie Peterson and John (bee) Lowe. Adrian Morrow who took the photo's and who was there to design a new imaginary TVR factory on his university course says he emailed the photo's to the TVR Club many years before but he neaver even got a reply back. The Taimar's/3000s at the factory had been brought back from New York docs for refreshment after being stuck there for some time.

[ruhall]

Excellent. Thanks for posting.

It will be interesting to see how the new TVR factory compares . I wonder if it will look a touch more modern?

I always find it 'interesting' comparing the old TVR factory shots with something like the Mercedes factory, which I've visited, and which is slightly more 'up to date'. Or Morgan, still made in the traditional manner, with chaps cutting bits of wood or panel beating pieces of aluminium (or aluminum if you don't speak proper English).

[Jubjub502]

Very cool. What month was it? The white convertible in one shot looks like mine, but mine has a March ‘83 build date.

Agree on the yellow one out front. Unusual and cool.

[tvrmk363]

I found a lot of pictures of the factory on one of the workers sites several years ago. Here are some of the wedge related ones. Most of the others are newer models.

[tvrmk363]

[tvrmk363]