Its our fault TVR went down.
Discussion
After a long time of reading these threads, I'm pretty much of the opinion that the collective fault of TVR's demise was our own, the owners.
This is not another thread about TVR bashing, quite the opposite.
The reason TVR could never survive was the very same reason TVR became successful. It spread its wings in the colin chapman era, when buying a hyperperformance car but avoiding the VAT because you put part of it together yourself gave you a boy racer special.
TVR was one step up from lotus. A car fully built but to a certain type of spec. Have all the fastest bits for little money but an overall package that needed constant attention to keep it all roadworthy.
As time progressed, spending your weekends upkeeping a car was seen as less and less desirable by the majority of car owners, and TVR was forced to try and introduce the concept of a car for little money, with all the fastest bits and decent reliability.
Reading these forum over the past few years with owners of new cars taking the car back because a bit of the trim had fallen off, or a slight vibration or rattle, pushed TVR into BMW territory. Dealers didn't stop this because they were making a nice living out of it, but inevitably you don't get something for nothing.
My feeling is that all new TVR's should have come with a full workshop manual, and a health warning, and the dealers should have refused to sell to people who gave the impression that they didn't know what they were getting into. But I guess that would never happen in the real world. If it had I believe TVR would still be operating.
Thats why I think TVR died and will never be back. Because we have changed as a society and the average guy in todays society is more likely to own a tub of facial moisturiser than a set of spanners.
Thats also why when I here about the ressurection of TVR producing cheap svelt hyper performance cars in reliable packages with bespoke engines I think its never likely to happen.
This is not another thread about TVR bashing, quite the opposite.
The reason TVR could never survive was the very same reason TVR became successful. It spread its wings in the colin chapman era, when buying a hyperperformance car but avoiding the VAT because you put part of it together yourself gave you a boy racer special.
TVR was one step up from lotus. A car fully built but to a certain type of spec. Have all the fastest bits for little money but an overall package that needed constant attention to keep it all roadworthy.
As time progressed, spending your weekends upkeeping a car was seen as less and less desirable by the majority of car owners, and TVR was forced to try and introduce the concept of a car for little money, with all the fastest bits and decent reliability.
Reading these forum over the past few years with owners of new cars taking the car back because a bit of the trim had fallen off, or a slight vibration or rattle, pushed TVR into BMW territory. Dealers didn't stop this because they were making a nice living out of it, but inevitably you don't get something for nothing.
My feeling is that all new TVR's should have come with a full workshop manual, and a health warning, and the dealers should have refused to sell to people who gave the impression that they didn't know what they were getting into. But I guess that would never happen in the real world. If it had I believe TVR would still be operating.
Thats why I think TVR died and will never be back. Because we have changed as a society and the average guy in todays society is more likely to own a tub of facial moisturiser than a set of spanners.
Thats also why when I here about the ressurection of TVR producing cheap svelt hyper performance cars in reliable packages with bespoke engines I think its never likely to happen.
TVR will be back, but not under old or current owners
The TVR name is surnonymous with performance and value, the brand is still strong and the image (although slightly tarnished now) is still one that holds desire for many people.
The Russian made some utter cock-ups and sold to the 'Mericans that are heading down the Russian route faster than you can say jumping Jimmeny
I know TVR will come back and be successful again, but Im affraid it wont be for atleast 5-10 years when someone serious and level headed gets control and works on a viable business plan and keeps his intentions and feet on the ground and his/her/their head out of their arse/clouds (delete as applicable)
I do agree with what you've said
The market is incredibley difficult now with almost everyone wanting everything in one package
Rocketship performance, beautifull, uber reliable, superior build quality and they want it all for £30k
The TVR name is surnonymous with performance and value, the brand is still strong and the image (although slightly tarnished now) is still one that holds desire for many people.
The Russian made some utter cock-ups and sold to the 'Mericans that are heading down the Russian route faster than you can say jumping Jimmeny
I know TVR will come back and be successful again, but Im affraid it wont be for atleast 5-10 years when someone serious and level headed gets control and works on a viable business plan and keeps his intentions and feet on the ground and his/her/their head out of their arse/clouds (delete as applicable)
I do agree with what you've said
The market is incredibley difficult now with almost everyone wanting everything in one package
Rocketship performance, beautifull, uber reliable, superior build quality and they want it all for £30k
I think to the contrary most TVR owners are incredibly tolerant and put up with situations that owners of other marques would not. The fact is that cars used to leave the factory in a pretty poor state with the dealers often having to spend days rectifying the situation. I have stuck pieces of trim back down myself on a brand new TVR, not something I would ever have contemplated with a Jag or BMW but as an owner I can't do much about a faulty ECU or a speedo that stops working at 100 miles. I once drove a car that had arrived at the dealers but had not yet been PDI'd. The brakes hardly worked!
If it is the speed six engine, and I'm not convinced its the whole problem, but if it is its because a griff copied the success of the Cobra.
Cobra is a to die for bodyshell put onto a bog standard engine that can be found in almost any junkyard in america for peanuts. It is an easy engine to work on and an enthusiasts dream, but in itself not too special, as the Chevy or Ford windsor found in most Cobra Kits can be found in everything from race cars to trucks in America.
Handy spannerman could keep this car on the road forever, just like Griff will be here long after AJP's and speed sixes are history.
The speed six and AJP, are engines with a degree of percieved mystery. The commonest comment you see from the enthusiasts even in PH land is that better left to an expert cos they are 'race' engines. This is a fundamental departure from the whole boy racer concept. Was TVR's attempt to cut its ties with the boy racer special image and become something more. It was also IMHO the time when TVR was trying to cut its own throat.
The AJP luckily was a reliable engine, and actually pretty easy to work on bar a few foibles, but doesn't take away the fact that with the AJP and speed six TVR had put two fingers up to its previous ethos of the handyman boy racer special. Forgetting reliablity or not of its two special engines this is where TVR has made a step because of the way the world had turned and not in its own best interests.
Cobra is a to die for bodyshell put onto a bog standard engine that can be found in almost any junkyard in america for peanuts. It is an easy engine to work on and an enthusiasts dream, but in itself not too special, as the Chevy or Ford windsor found in most Cobra Kits can be found in everything from race cars to trucks in America.
Handy spannerman could keep this car on the road forever, just like Griff will be here long after AJP's and speed sixes are history.
The speed six and AJP, are engines with a degree of percieved mystery. The commonest comment you see from the enthusiasts even in PH land is that better left to an expert cos they are 'race' engines. This is a fundamental departure from the whole boy racer concept. Was TVR's attempt to cut its ties with the boy racer special image and become something more. It was also IMHO the time when TVR was trying to cut its own throat.
The AJP luckily was a reliable engine, and actually pretty easy to work on bar a few foibles, but doesn't take away the fact that with the AJP and speed six TVR had put two fingers up to its previous ethos of the handyman boy racer special. Forgetting reliablity or not of its two special engines this is where TVR has made a step because of the way the world had turned and not in its own best interests.
Its not only the engines but the cars also starting to look to wacky, like you need a black cape with ears and a friend next to you in a tights red shorts and cape with eye mask. Oh and a film crew following. Look at the throw back to retro styling at the moment Mustang , Dodge challenger e.t.c e.t.c, and how the s series brought sales after the wedge.The latest cars are just to shouty, if a customer has 50k to spend he probably does not have to shout his wealth so much , so something a little toned down is more likely to appeal. Look at the smooth lines of a Aston or Griff or Chim, not fussy jaggardy arse bits sticking out everywhere, its a bit to close to fast and furious ricers .The latest cars are a bit punk style which is a bit youth orientated but youth generally can't afford 50k. It needs a touch of the James bond style at that price shaken not stirred , smooooooooothhhhh !. Oh and a old school V8.
Lensey said:
NS stated that the car will move up-market. The price “has to go up” but not by as much as 100%. He said that the market for a £30,000 V8 Griff had gone.
I think it has been under bad management for a while now, I have always thought of TVR as a cheap super car, because of that I'm willing to put up with a few problems, although if I'm going to spend £50k+ on a car I don't expect to have major problems. The statement above says quite a lot really, not saying its all NS fault but in my opinion TVR have been trying to move up-market for sometime but I really don't think they will ever have the customers. I believe TVR owners are owners because of the style, nationality and most important the price of them! I purchased my first TVR 8 years ago because it was affordable and like nothing else on the road, I'm only on my 2nd but I'm pretty sure a third won't be possible because TVR would've have gone again? I hope not but by the looks of things the new TVR will be aimed at the American market, it will be full of gadgets to keep them happy and lose everything that TVR originally stood for
Rum Runner said:
Its not only the engines but the cars also starting to look to wacky....
I don't think so, Yes the Sag is a bit extreme (i like it) but the Tuscan and especially the Tuscan II Convertable are not, Look at the number of Cerbera and Griff owners that have modified their cars to look more like the Tuscans (headlight conversions).
TVR closed the door to a large number of serial buyers when they stopped offering a choice of engine...Straight six engines are wonderful, BMW have them if i wanted one, I don't i like V8's cos they different and special (in a "when i grow up i want one" kind of asperational way). It was that dream of owning a sportscar that had a v8 that sold the TVR brand to me. Not all owners are like that and i understand that, but a lot of us are and TVR closed the door to us buying new.
Julian64 said:
Thats why I think TVR died and will never be back. Because we have changed as a society and the average guy in todays society is more likely to own a tub of facial moisturiser than a set of spanners.
BREAKING NEWS
According to sources at Pistonheads.com
TVR's demise has been linked to blokes
using facial moisturiser.
No, its not our fault. True the market moved, but so could TVR. The seeds of its demise were planted as the first Griffs and Chims rolled out of the factory in the early 1990s.
As early as 1994 the new band of TVR owners, having been tempted from their Porches, Supras and 300ZXs were complaining that things broke/went wrong with their TVRs that never broke/went wrong on their normal purchases from Germany or Japan. Shoddy dealer service and high repair costs started to put customers off.
Fortunately for TVR, even though customers were already leaving the brand,new converts were still coming in through the front door in ever increasing numbers - more than enough to compensate for those that were lost.
In 1995, with the rise of the Griff 500, the winning package was still there, it was just getting a bit tarnished. In 1996, 4 years after the launch of the Griff, and 3 years after the Chim, cabins still got water logged. Wipers still stopped wiping. paint chipped alarmingly, suspension bushes wore out very quickly, electrics died, engines spewed coolant and all the while TVR did little to address these problems.
The Cerbera, launched in 1996 was not the start of TVRs problems, it merely compounded them. Initially sales were strong, but horror stories of engine problems, shoddy build and leaky boots/cabins all began to paint a picture of a company that had taken a step too far, too soon, without having addressed core problems. I speak from personal experience at this point. I had owned a niggly Chim 4.3 from new, and loved it. Then my Cerb turned up and it was awful. It broke down twice on the test drive (before finally throwing its aircon belt and the clutch failed completely) You could put your fingers up into the cabin through the gap beneath the rear window, It was built terribly, so I sent it back - and I never bought a new TVR again. (In fact I went retrograde and bought a wedge!
)
At least with the RV8 engined models the cars rarely ever actually died on the road. The trusty RV8 usually got you home, often the Cerb with its mix of AJP engine and dodgy electrics did not.
The signs were there for all to see and TVR ignored them. OK, nobody ever expected Porsche build quality, but they did expect dry feet and engines that didnt boil over in traffic. (you could call these things the minimum
deliverable criteria!) and the Cerb quickly established TVR as a builder of cars that went very wrong, very quickly and very expensively. A good pal of mine bought a brand new Cerb 4.5. It arrived at my offices running very badly. A quick inspection revealed that half the intake plenum hoses were not attached.
When TVR finally did start to sort things out in the late 90s, it was already looking like a busted flush. Sales were down and still falling. It needed a new wonder product like the Griff. It needed a new story to tell its customers, a story that did not involve tales of more things breaking. What it got was the Tuscan and the SP6.
When the Tuscan arrived it failed to bring the customers back in the same numbers that TVR had enjoyed in the mid 1990s. True, there was a brief upsurge in sales, but nothing like the surges achieved by Griff and Chim. People were biding their time. I was one of those people. Even before the scares about the S6 engine emerged, people expressed doubts about the looks, the interior styling, the more manic driving experience, and the fact that it wasnt a proper convertible. When it proved to be the case that it leaked and had even more electrical problems than the griff/chim/Cerb then people started keeping their cheque books closed. The final nail was the S6 debacle. A brief rally surrounded the launch of Tamora, but it was so ugly people went back to sleep.
T350, Saggy, Tuscan 2? All lovely, all too late, and all failing to address the root cause of the down fall - TVRs failure to recreate the desires of the market in fibre glass form.
Beyond this, there was a wider story. The market was changing, and TVR failed to recognise it. Its customers were no longer the die hard breed of enthusiasts that would put up with all the niggles.
Everyone wanted their cars to be built GBP1k better. That one thousand pounds would pay for decent components, a bit more development and a little extra care in assembly. It never really came, and without it, the reasons for
buying the product started to fade as the products aged and the band of customers looked elsewhere for their next 4 wheel performance fix..
Some wanted airbags and maybe some wanted ABS. Wheeler bluffed and said stuff like that was for poofs, but it didnt disguise the fact that as TVR courted a more mainstream audience in order to keep its order books full,
it comprehensively failed to respond to the requirements of that wider audience.
We didn't kill the company. Bad management, poor workmanship, daft strategic thinking, bad design, failure to address reliability issues, failure to recognise the change in the market conditions and above all the failure to give the TVR buyer what he/she really wanted, THATS what killed TVR.
All IMHO of course.
Andy
As early as 1994 the new band of TVR owners, having been tempted from their Porches, Supras and 300ZXs were complaining that things broke/went wrong with their TVRs that never broke/went wrong on their normal purchases from Germany or Japan. Shoddy dealer service and high repair costs started to put customers off.
Fortunately for TVR, even though customers were already leaving the brand,new converts were still coming in through the front door in ever increasing numbers - more than enough to compensate for those that were lost.
In 1995, with the rise of the Griff 500, the winning package was still there, it was just getting a bit tarnished. In 1996, 4 years after the launch of the Griff, and 3 years after the Chim, cabins still got water logged. Wipers still stopped wiping. paint chipped alarmingly, suspension bushes wore out very quickly, electrics died, engines spewed coolant and all the while TVR did little to address these problems.
The Cerbera, launched in 1996 was not the start of TVRs problems, it merely compounded them. Initially sales were strong, but horror stories of engine problems, shoddy build and leaky boots/cabins all began to paint a picture of a company that had taken a step too far, too soon, without having addressed core problems. I speak from personal experience at this point. I had owned a niggly Chim 4.3 from new, and loved it. Then my Cerb turned up and it was awful. It broke down twice on the test drive (before finally throwing its aircon belt and the clutch failed completely) You could put your fingers up into the cabin through the gap beneath the rear window, It was built terribly, so I sent it back - and I never bought a new TVR again. (In fact I went retrograde and bought a wedge!
) At least with the RV8 engined models the cars rarely ever actually died on the road. The trusty RV8 usually got you home, often the Cerb with its mix of AJP engine and dodgy electrics did not.
The signs were there for all to see and TVR ignored them. OK, nobody ever expected Porsche build quality, but they did expect dry feet and engines that didnt boil over in traffic. (you could call these things the minimum
deliverable criteria!) and the Cerb quickly established TVR as a builder of cars that went very wrong, very quickly and very expensively. A good pal of mine bought a brand new Cerb 4.5. It arrived at my offices running very badly. A quick inspection revealed that half the intake plenum hoses were not attached.
When TVR finally did start to sort things out in the late 90s, it was already looking like a busted flush. Sales were down and still falling. It needed a new wonder product like the Griff. It needed a new story to tell its customers, a story that did not involve tales of more things breaking. What it got was the Tuscan and the SP6.
When the Tuscan arrived it failed to bring the customers back in the same numbers that TVR had enjoyed in the mid 1990s. True, there was a brief upsurge in sales, but nothing like the surges achieved by Griff and Chim. People were biding their time. I was one of those people. Even before the scares about the S6 engine emerged, people expressed doubts about the looks, the interior styling, the more manic driving experience, and the fact that it wasnt a proper convertible. When it proved to be the case that it leaked and had even more electrical problems than the griff/chim/Cerb then people started keeping their cheque books closed. The final nail was the S6 debacle. A brief rally surrounded the launch of Tamora, but it was so ugly people went back to sleep.
T350, Saggy, Tuscan 2? All lovely, all too late, and all failing to address the root cause of the down fall - TVRs failure to recreate the desires of the market in fibre glass form.
Beyond this, there was a wider story. The market was changing, and TVR failed to recognise it. Its customers were no longer the die hard breed of enthusiasts that would put up with all the niggles.
Everyone wanted their cars to be built GBP1k better. That one thousand pounds would pay for decent components, a bit more development and a little extra care in assembly. It never really came, and without it, the reasons for
buying the product started to fade as the products aged and the band of customers looked elsewhere for their next 4 wheel performance fix..
Some wanted airbags and maybe some wanted ABS. Wheeler bluffed and said stuff like that was for poofs, but it didnt disguise the fact that as TVR courted a more mainstream audience in order to keep its order books full,
it comprehensively failed to respond to the requirements of that wider audience.
We didn't kill the company. Bad management, poor workmanship, daft strategic thinking, bad design, failure to address reliability issues, failure to recognise the change in the market conditions and above all the failure to give the TVR buyer what he/she really wanted, THATS what killed TVR.
All IMHO of course.
Andy
Edited by andymadmak on Tuesday 6th March 11:12
Daftlad said:
jagdpanther said:
Daftlad said:
jagdpanther said:
Rocketship performance, beautifull, uber reliable, superior build quality and they want it all for £30k
Its called a used Porsche.
Where does the beauty come in John??
It's reality I'm afraid.
From what Ive been told, I tend to agree about build quality and reliability, but personally, the last Porsche's I found vaguely attractive was the late 80's 911 Carrera and the 928S4
beano500 said:
jagdpanther said:
TVR will be back
"It's life Jim, but not as we know it" 
I hope so
Sorry to be picky but the caption for Dr McCoy should be
"It's worse than that he's dead Jim"
It was Mr Spock who said "It's life Jim but not as we know it"
Still appropriate for the state of TVR.
Oh and back on topic customers are the lifeblood of a company, once the company loses the customer they're in serious trouble.
Build good products that people want and you'll have them throwing money at you. (As PW experienced at the 1990 MotorShow)
You can't blame the customers for not buying something they didn't want....
Edited by V8 GRF on Tuesday 6th March 11:34
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