Should the sport 160 and get a TVR griffth 5 litre ?
Discussion
Been thinking about this recently, I could sell the elise and get either a griffth 500, 5 litre or a Chimera 4.5 / 5.0 (going from the lotus to the TVR would basically be the same cost to buy)
Running costs cant be that bad, the rover is a sound engine and never stressed in the TVR's but what about gearbox, brakes etc... A nice set of coilovers would sort out the handling so no problems there, the sound allone is worth the money and its more comfortable, better on the motorway, softtop etc........ The question is would it cost much more to run. Of course petrol will be worse but not too bad as its still a pretty light car, but what about parts. I dont mind doing most of the handy work myself so servicing costs dont really apply. The sport 160 is group 20 as is the TVR.
Is this a nuts idea? and would the BOLOC crew still except me in a none Lotus beast?
Running costs cant be that bad, the rover is a sound engine and never stressed in the TVR's but what about gearbox, brakes etc... A nice set of coilovers would sort out the handling so no problems there, the sound allone is worth the money and its more comfortable, better on the motorway, softtop etc........ The question is would it cost much more to run. Of course petrol will be worse but not too bad as its still a pretty light car, but what about parts. I dont mind doing most of the handy work myself so servicing costs dont really apply. The sport 160 is group 20 as is the TVR.
Is this a nuts idea? and would the BOLOC crew still except me in a none Lotus beast?
In a word - NO!
The running costs will be at least double that of your Sport 160. Servicing is every 6000 miles, and for the 5litre version will cost around £750-800 with a main dealer. Fuel economy will be very bad. Road tax will be in the higher bracket (as per budget). Reliability will be worse, parts more expensive. A to B speed will be similar, with the Elise probably better, although granted the straight line speed will be a lot better in the TVR. The sound will be awesome in the TVR too.
I have been in similar situations, have had big engined sports cars, but always come back to the Elise, for the grin factor and relatively low running costs for a sports car.
Really think why you want to change to a TVR, as it could end up denting your back pocket.
Cheers,
Ed.
The running costs will be at least double that of your Sport 160. Servicing is every 6000 miles, and for the 5litre version will cost around £750-800 with a main dealer. Fuel economy will be very bad. Road tax will be in the higher bracket (as per budget). Reliability will be worse, parts more expensive. A to B speed will be similar, with the Elise probably better, although granted the straight line speed will be a lot better in the TVR. The sound will be awesome in the TVR too.
I have been in similar situations, have had big engined sports cars, but always come back to the Elise, for the grin factor and relatively low running costs for a sports car.
Really think why you want to change to a TVR, as it could end up denting your back pocket.
Cheers,
Ed.
I see what you mean. My old man has got a cerbera and to be fair thats been more reliable than my elise and the griffth and chimera's are meant to more reliable the cerbera. I use the sport 160 everday and I crave more practicallity and the TVR's do have very big boots.
I dont really see the servicing as an issue as I will do this myself, just the cost of parts etc... I know what you mean about fun, I've driven the cerbera and its massively fast but the elise is more fun to drive. atleast with the elise, you can rag the nuts off it and it wont bite you hard. Do that in the TVR and that back end is go to go wide very quickly..
I dont really see the servicing as an issue as I will do this myself, just the cost of parts etc... I know what you mean about fun, I've driven the cerbera and its massively fast but the elise is more fun to drive. atleast with the elise, you can rag the nuts off it and it wont bite you hard. Do that in the TVR and that back end is go to go wide very quickly..
Have a chat to my neighbour who has joined me on a couple of Bolocs runs.
He bought a chimaera for about 13.5K Nov 2004. Since then, between tyres, servicing, powersteering part failures, head gasket, brakes etc, he was up to about 8K in bills and was without the car from October until mid december. 1K later, bottom end failure. Now another 6 weeks without the car and facing a further 3.5K or so in bills. He also will not track the car in case it breaks. Credit to him - he loves the car, but those bills would have crippled me. I haven't spent a 1/4 of that and most of my bills have been mods.
Piooly - think very carefully - they are fragile in any incarnation, rover engines included.
He bought a chimaera for about 13.5K Nov 2004. Since then, between tyres, servicing, powersteering part failures, head gasket, brakes etc, he was up to about 8K in bills and was without the car from October until mid december. 1K later, bottom end failure. Now another 6 weeks without the car and facing a further 3.5K or so in bills. He also will not track the car in case it breaks. Credit to him - he loves the car, but those bills would have crippled me. I haven't spent a 1/4 of that and most of my bills have been mods.
Piooly - think very carefully - they are fragile in any incarnation, rover engines included.
you get good uns and bad uns...dont forget ALL Griffiths will be old cars now - even minters...so lots of things will start to require replacing.
as for a set of coil overs sorting the handling....have you driven one? ...you are having a laugh ...they are very characterful sports cars but compared to an Elise (or Esprit) for that matter they are way off the mark. The later generation of TVR are better...in order of OK to great handling wise : Tuscan, Tamora, T350, Sagaris
I love the TVR concept...but would stick to the later generation myself
as for a set of coil overs sorting the handling....have you driven one? ...you are having a laugh ...they are very characterful sports cars but compared to an Elise (or Esprit) for that matter they are way off the mark. The later generation of TVR are better...in order of OK to great handling wise : Tuscan, Tamora, T350, Sagaris
I love the TVR concept...but would stick to the later generation myself
I went from a standard S1 Elise to a Griffith 500.
Kept the Griffith for a little over a year, before selling it to go back to an Elise (S1 Sport 160 this time), which probably tells you all you need to know.
The Elise and the Griffith are very different animals. The Griffith looks great, makes a very nice noise, is comfortable and practical for long distance touring and has pulverising acceleration. Don't look at the 0-60 times and think: 'Sport 160 in about 5 seconds, Griff 500 in about 4.8, nothing in it, then!'. The Griff takes 4.8 seconds to 60 because the back wheels are spinning most of the way there!
BUT the Griffith does not handle, at least not by any definition of handling that a Lotus driver would apply, and don't believe anyone on the TVR forums that tells you that it does. It is a crude, hairy-arsed animal.
I never got to like the Griffith...it was simply way too brut force and ignorance for my tastes - battle axe compared to the Elise's rapier - but boy did the S160's acceleration feel limp when I swapped back!
The Griff was fantastically quick in a straight line, but point-to-point I was quicker in my Seat Leon Cupra company car. The Lotus, on the other hand, carries so much speed on twisty roads that is still astonishes me...I find myself glancing at the speedo to se an indicated 120mph at times where I just know that I'd not feel comfortable at more than 80 or 90 in a Griffith. There is also a slight imbalance in the rear damping of the Griffith which wrong-footed the car every now and then, and very occasionally scared the living sh1t out of me! Period road tests mention the same problem, so I'm confident it wasn't just my car. People on the Griff forum reckon that a properly adjusted set of Nitrons will cure the problem, so if you do decide to buy one, budget £1,500 for the new coilovers.
The Griffith was cheaper to insure (classic insurance), not as unreliable as people would have you think (though it needed more TLC than either of my Elises have) and didn't depreciate at all (values are static, if not climbing), against which it did about 16mpg on super unleaded only (they tend to pink on premium grade unleaded) and burned Mobil 1 20W50 at about a litre every 800 miles (again, perfectly normal for the 5 litre engine!).
At the end of the day, though, the Rover engined TVR's are merely very fast, very crude sportscars. The Elise, on the other hand, is possibly the finest precision driving tool ever made available to the masses and was technically enough of a quantum leap forward as to have earned itself a permanent place in the history of the motorcar.
Each to their own, and all that, but I've done the TVR thing and I have no intention of going back.
Kept the Griffith for a little over a year, before selling it to go back to an Elise (S1 Sport 160 this time), which probably tells you all you need to know.
The Elise and the Griffith are very different animals. The Griffith looks great, makes a very nice noise, is comfortable and practical for long distance touring and has pulverising acceleration. Don't look at the 0-60 times and think: 'Sport 160 in about 5 seconds, Griff 500 in about 4.8, nothing in it, then!'. The Griff takes 4.8 seconds to 60 because the back wheels are spinning most of the way there!
BUT the Griffith does not handle, at least not by any definition of handling that a Lotus driver would apply, and don't believe anyone on the TVR forums that tells you that it does. It is a crude, hairy-arsed animal.
I never got to like the Griffith...it was simply way too brut force and ignorance for my tastes - battle axe compared to the Elise's rapier - but boy did the S160's acceleration feel limp when I swapped back!
The Griff was fantastically quick in a straight line, but point-to-point I was quicker in my Seat Leon Cupra company car. The Lotus, on the other hand, carries so much speed on twisty roads that is still astonishes me...I find myself glancing at the speedo to se an indicated 120mph at times where I just know that I'd not feel comfortable at more than 80 or 90 in a Griffith. There is also a slight imbalance in the rear damping of the Griffith which wrong-footed the car every now and then, and very occasionally scared the living sh1t out of me! Period road tests mention the same problem, so I'm confident it wasn't just my car. People on the Griff forum reckon that a properly adjusted set of Nitrons will cure the problem, so if you do decide to buy one, budget £1,500 for the new coilovers.
The Griffith was cheaper to insure (classic insurance), not as unreliable as people would have you think (though it needed more TLC than either of my Elises have) and didn't depreciate at all (values are static, if not climbing), against which it did about 16mpg on super unleaded only (they tend to pink on premium grade unleaded) and burned Mobil 1 20W50 at about a litre every 800 miles (again, perfectly normal for the 5 litre engine!).
At the end of the day, though, the Rover engined TVR's are merely very fast, very crude sportscars. The Elise, on the other hand, is possibly the finest precision driving tool ever made available to the masses and was technically enough of a quantum leap forward as to have earned itself a permanent place in the history of the motorcar.
Each to their own, and all that, but I've done the TVR thing and I have no intention of going back.
Just went through the exact same thought process after I wrote off my S1.
I've always loved the Griffith ever since I first saw one when I was 12. Test drove one a few weeks back. Was in mint condition, pretty much overhauled by the dealer, new suspension, wishbones, rebuilt engine etc. I wasn't totally sure what to expect if I'm honest. Have read lots of people's points of view on here and the griff forum, and the bias that tends to go hand in hand. To cut to the chase I wasn't very taken by it. Ok they are painfully pretty and the sound is amazing but the ride is pretty terrible. Very nervous, skittish and tramlines all over the place. I do actually think the chassis is pretty good, but nowhere near Elise standards.
If I was to buy one it would be for totally different reasons to the Elise. That I think is what it boils down to, they are chalk and cheese. Just because they'll both get you from a to b in similar times doesn't mean they are similar cars. I would be nervous (read scared!) of pushing a griffith. The elise on the other hand feels much confident.
To sum up...I'm getting another Elise. I'll save the Griff for when I"m too old to fold myself into the Elise.
I've always loved the Griffith ever since I first saw one when I was 12. Test drove one a few weeks back. Was in mint condition, pretty much overhauled by the dealer, new suspension, wishbones, rebuilt engine etc. I wasn't totally sure what to expect if I'm honest. Have read lots of people's points of view on here and the griff forum, and the bias that tends to go hand in hand. To cut to the chase I wasn't very taken by it. Ok they are painfully pretty and the sound is amazing but the ride is pretty terrible. Very nervous, skittish and tramlines all over the place. I do actually think the chassis is pretty good, but nowhere near Elise standards.
If I was to buy one it would be for totally different reasons to the Elise. That I think is what it boils down to, they are chalk and cheese. Just because they'll both get you from a to b in similar times doesn't mean they are similar cars. I would be nervous (read scared!) of pushing a griffith. The elise on the other hand feels much confident.
To sum up...I'm getting another Elise. I'll save the Griff for when I"m too old to fold myself into the Elise.
I nearly got a Elise instead of my first TVR S2, I now have the Griff 500 and to be honest I have spent a lot on it, the uprated shocks are such an improvement over the standard shocks and I’m led to believe the more expensive items like nitrons are even better. Ok might not be in Elise territory but still great fun at brands hatch. Most of the money I spent was on engine rebuilds, one thing I learnt was get all work carried out by a reputable specialist. I had my engine rebuilt twice by a V8 specialist, it was never right and in the end had to be done again by TVR to get it done properly and they weren’t that much more expensive either.
Insurance is reasonable, it still shares lots of parts with other cars so most parts are quite cheap, make sure you get one with a good chassis and has been looked after.
You will need to get used to a different type of driving, it will have more straight line speed and you can hang the back out whenever you like, I had mine set up by Topcats racing and it’s now very controllable on the limit, not as snappy as it was before and really turns in well, only down side is with the extra camber on the front it tramlines a lot more.
Get yourself down to a dealer for a test drive, and if you decide to buy I would recommend getting the car inspected.
Insurance is reasonable, it still shares lots of parts with other cars so most parts are quite cheap, make sure you get one with a good chassis and has been looked after.
You will need to get used to a different type of driving, it will have more straight line speed and you can hang the back out whenever you like, I had mine set up by Topcats racing and it’s now very controllable on the limit, not as snappy as it was before and really turns in well, only down side is with the extra camber on the front it tramlines a lot more.
Get yourself down to a dealer for a test drive, and if you decide to buy I would recommend getting the car inspected.
Quinny said:
Piooly - think very carefully - they are fragile in any incarnation, rover engines included.
Can't agree with that statement, you know one guy who's had to spend a lot.
He's not the only one, but each to their own. Hbaumhardt - chimaera written off eventually (after loads of expenses) by a diff locking up.
Work colleague with a tuscan - 3 engines in the first 9000 miles. Traded it in the day before the warranty expired.
Another work colleague - major TVR nut, but reckoned on 5K a year running costs avarage over all the TVR's he has owned (5). Summarised by saying he would never in future own one that was out of warranty.
That represents 4 out of 4 of the people I know reasonably well who have owned TVR's.
I have never heard of anyone buying them for their reliabilty. I am not knocking them as a car - loads of power and speed. And yes, running cost wise probably substantially better than a noble. I nearly bought a noble BTW, but have never heard anything other than nightmare stories about running costs.
They are actually more complex in terms of numbers of components and especially in terms of electrics than the Elise, but they are fairly low-tech, so when something goes wrong they are easy enough for a DIY fix.
Apart from blowing a clutch (fixed under warranty) mine suffered only niggling faults...odd electrical problems, blowing exhaust manifold gaskets and the like, which were annoying but which I fixed myself for negligible cost. I certainly couldn't accuse the car of being expensive to maintain, particularly given its massive performance. It wouldn't even be fair to say it was unreliable, since any car of that age, used infrequently, would experience similar minor issues.
I can understand the appeal of TVR's, but they are so different in character to Lotus' that I can't honestly see much overlap between enthusiasts for the two marques.
The phrase which keeps cropping up is 'chalk and cheese', and I think it is very valid. If you like raw, blood-and-guts performance cars, then the Rover V8 generation TVR's might suit you well, but don't expect anything with the cerebral precision, balance and technical delicacy of a Lotus.
If it were a Griffith owner enquiring about the possibility of buying an Elise, though, I'd be making similarly stern warnings not to expect the same levels of straight line performance, interior comfort and practicality, or great soundtrack.
>> Edited by Sam_68 on Thursday 23 March 22:50
Apart from blowing a clutch (fixed under warranty) mine suffered only niggling faults...odd electrical problems, blowing exhaust manifold gaskets and the like, which were annoying but which I fixed myself for negligible cost. I certainly couldn't accuse the car of being expensive to maintain, particularly given its massive performance. It wouldn't even be fair to say it was unreliable, since any car of that age, used infrequently, would experience similar minor issues.
I can understand the appeal of TVR's, but they are so different in character to Lotus' that I can't honestly see much overlap between enthusiasts for the two marques.
The phrase which keeps cropping up is 'chalk and cheese', and I think it is very valid. If you like raw, blood-and-guts performance cars, then the Rover V8 generation TVR's might suit you well, but don't expect anything with the cerebral precision, balance and technical delicacy of a Lotus.
If it were a Griffith owner enquiring about the possibility of buying an Elise, though, I'd be making similarly stern warnings not to expect the same levels of straight line performance, interior comfort and practicality, or great soundtrack.
>> Edited by Sam_68 on Thursday 23 March 22:50
piooly said:
Been thinking about this recently, I could sell the elise and get either a griffth 500, 5 litre or a Chimera 4.5 / 5.0 (going from the lotus to the TVR would basically be the same cost to buy)
Running costs cant be that bad, the rover is a sound engine and never stressed in the TVR's but what about gearbox, brakes etc... A nice set of coilovers would sort out the handling so no problems there, the sound allone is worth the money and its more comfortable, better on the motorway, softtop etc.
Softtop? what you mean? the Elise softtop? because a griffith(mine) had a hard targa roof?
Anyway I had a Griffith 4.3 BIG valve and a V8S 4.0L both BIG fun for a while or on occasion but not so good or fine doing speeds over 200km and handling(standard setup) feel still heavy compared to a Elise and not that sharp, ow and when you drive fast on a wet road and change gear down your wheels block easely
just remembering my first week with that lovely grumbling machine...lovely charakter? but not the whole time
or year... I do mis them some times though, but rahter have a SC Exige or Elise with hardtop
What would it be...old man in a strong Griffith or young boy racer in a Lotus, its up to you.
GTRene
I still lust after a Griff 500, but after owning the Elise I'd never give her up for one.... they're not THAT much faster in a straight line up to about 80mph (I've shown up more than the odd Tiv on the 1/4 mile!) and as soon as a corner hits, it's absolutely no contest. Still want to have a Griff 500 for pure lairyness value, but it'll be as a garage companion to my Elise instead of a substitute.
Then it surely will plessure you its a almost a scary hairy fun car
like a Jackel and Hide? but when you know what it can do(you never know) its BIG fun drive slow then floor that accelerator and wrowwww nice feeling and sound, only very short power band though, thats when I missed the BMW M straight six screemers..to 8.000rpm and bought that back and back and ...now its time for Exige SC
GTRene
>> Edited by GTRene on Thursday 23 March 23:36
its a almost a scary hairy fun car like a Jackel and Hide? but when you know what it can do(you never know) its BIG fun drive slow then floor that accelerator and wrowwww nice feeling and sound, only very short power band though, thats when I missed the BMW M straight six screemers..to 8.000rpm and bought that back and back and ...now its time for Exige SC GTRene
>> Edited by GTRene on Thursday 23 March 23:36
Forgetting the Rover variants, how does a T350C compare to a Lotus? Must admit I find these gorgeous, and if I were to change my S2 111S next year it would be a hard decision between this and an Exige (S).
Do get very scared about the engine stories though, but it seems like it depends on how careful the thing was run in...
Do get very scared about the engine stories though, but it seems like it depends on how careful the thing was run in...
in most magazine tests the T350 will lap quicker than an S2 Exige .....yup..theres always the engine scares....just get a TVR extended warranty, and if the worst happens it can be fixed at the dealer now rather than going back to the factory.
If you really want one - then get one just to see what its like....Im lucky as the other half loves TVRs so I get to play in hers
If you really want one - then get one just to see what its like....Im lucky as the other half loves TVRs so I get to play in hers
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