Its just an engine after all

[red griff 500]

porkus said:

Someone is making a lot of money somewhere As for a lot of labour........from a production line point of view even if the Assembler went for a beer for 4 hrs a day I cant see a whole engine taking more than 8 hrs to complete from scratch if it was all in bits.....thats why is is called a production line I mean if the factory says its £5000 for a rebuild: Assembly Labour charged at £30 an hour in an average factory......... thats 166 hours to rebuild and engine?!!!!!!........... or one man flat out for 4.4 weeks? dont think so..... say TVR build 540 cars a year thats 540 engines or 540 engine in 232 working days at 8 hours a day or 2.3 engines a day which is basically costing the factory £103 a day per man So a TVR engine takes 3.47 hours to build from scratch or 10.41 hrs on a 3 shift system (£309)...... If 3 men built one engine it would be 3x times the costs which isnt anywhere near £5000!!! nearer £1000 I cant believe the design costs were £2,160,000........which is what the rest of the £5k calculates too. For instance 4 design engineers @ 28k per year and 3 years to develop the engine = £224,000..... £5k Seems a rip off to me....... In our factory a rebuild would cost: Labour £117 for two men (engine build from scratch all piece parts.) Parts say £1200 @ factory cost Labour to extract and fit engine £272 Total of £1589. Sorry will get off Engineering Soapbox now.

Porkus, don't forget that the engine has to be dismantled, parts analysed to see if they're fit for re-use, and replacement parts like crankshafts, camshafts, bearings, valves etc also require man hours to manufacture and heat treat etc i.e. parts ain't cheap. I'm surprised you think that an engine can be completely built in 8 hours-you may be right but it sounds quick to me. I don't doubt that some people are making a lot of money out of this stuff, but I think you may be slightly over-egging it.

Design/development costs £224,000? You're having a larf. I too am a Mechanical Engineer and I manage (technically) the design and development of electro-mechanical products (far simpler than this engine) for a production line - I'm used to spending £1M to get something into production so £2M for an engine sounds bloody cheap to me (especially when you think of the dedicated Machine Tools necessary to produce the parts). In my experience it is pretty easy and cheap to make a 1 off prototype, or even 10 off, but it's a different kettle of fish to create a whole production process.

Anyhow Porkus, fellow Griff owner, we seem to have a few things in common cos I too adore the awesome looks of the Tuscan and will no doubt take a deep breath at some stage and buy one. In my opinion the MK1 Tuscan is close to being the most stunning looking car ever made (the MK2 aint bad either), and with the performance....and at that price....Christ it's tempting. If only the Griff wasn't sooooo beautiful in a classic kinda way.....

No hard feelings I hope old bean!