styling question
Discussion
Mike Brewer said:
I know the original TVR was styled by Oliver Winterbottom under Martin Lilys ownership but when the 350 S2 was introduced was the update done by TVR inhouse?Cheers Mike
, ugly ducklings need love too 
Brap_Brap said:
Mike Brewer said:
I know the original TVR was styled by Oliver Winterbottom under Martin Lilys ownership but when the 350 S2 was introduced was the update done by TVR inhouse?Cheers Mike
I'm trying, but there are still angles I just can't like..........
giugiaro did the esprit, but b4 the eclat/elite series was launched by Lotus.
Contours of the tasmin were of the “folded paper” school popularized by Giugiaro and in front three-quarter view the TVR Tasmin was quite reminiscent of the Lotus Excel. the excel is the modern style of the eclat.
but eclat/elite/excel do not came from giugiaro.
nor the tasmin.
the tasmin looks similar from some ankles because the 80ies designs in general are a sort of wedge-design. as the lotus came earlier it was easy to copy some style elements.
in the tasmin design was none of the famous car designer involved. it was an in-house job.
maybe some former lotus engineers who worked at tvr that time and are responsible for the suspension layout , also brought some "ideas" about the design with them.
Contours of the tasmin were of the “folded paper” school popularized by Giugiaro and in front three-quarter view the TVR Tasmin was quite reminiscent of the Lotus Excel. the excel is the modern style of the eclat.
but eclat/elite/excel do not came from giugiaro.
nor the tasmin.
the tasmin looks similar from some ankles because the 80ies designs in general are a sort of wedge-design. as the lotus came earlier it was easy to copy some style elements.
in the tasmin design was none of the famous car designer involved. it was an in-house job.
maybe some former lotus engineers who worked at tvr that time and are responsible for the suspension layout , also brought some "ideas" about the design with them.
Edited by Comadis on Tuesday 21st July 22:47
adam quantrill said:
I once heard that the Wedge was styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro who did the Lotus Esprit first. But I can't remember where I read this....
Probably on Mythbusters, the same episode where they claimed the 390SE had 275bhp... 
Although Giugiaro styled the prototype Esprit, it had to be reworked for production (possibly by Ollie W.) as the windscreen was too raked back.
People say in hindsight that TVR missed the boat with Wedge styling; it was just about OK for 1975 but by '79/80 it was old hat. However... what else could they have come up with? The Grantura-based style was old (yes, it was 'retro' when PW went back to it in the late 80s but a decade earler it was just OLD). Nothing new had been done by the Italians since the Countach (which got better with age but wasn't too pretty early on) so copying the Ferrari Dino was out and the mainstream makers had yet to copy Ford's 'jellymould' styling because the Sierra was still half a decade away.
The Esprit was still the daddy of Brit sportscars (the Elite was too much like the Pink Panther's car for some people
and the Eclat never found the family man it was aimed at) so the obvious thing was to borrow from it... just a shame some of the Tasmin's proportions went a bit wrong. I always wondered what a Tas with a blunter front and 'normal' lights might have looked like: after all, the square look never hurt the Integrale.Sorry, thinking out loud; carry on
Gassing Station | Wedges | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff