RE: New TVR Griffith - official
Discussion
BJWoods said:
I'm a tvr owner of 20 years and I thought pretty cynical.
Really?You don't sound very cynical to me.
The only connection between this car and previous TVR's is the badge, so what does it matter that you're a TVR owner of 20 years' standing?
It's a new car, by a new manufacturer, who has bought an old badge carrying a lot of baggage - much of it far from good.
It may or may not have been designed by Gordon Murray (it uses his iStream manufacturing process, and may have been designed by his team, but I somehow doubt that you'll find the initials 'GM' on many of the drawings). It may or may not be built to modern manufacturing standards: it will be built by a bunch of Welshman (no offence to the Welsh) whose experience and heritage in car manufacturing is precisely zero. Once the initial novelty has worn off, and the handful of dewy-eyed nostalgists with enough cash to purchase one new have shot their wad, it'll be competing with a lot of very competent, well-developed machinery, both new and nearly-new. And just to top it all off, it's heading into an era when non-hybrid performance cars are about to be legislated out of existence, so it's got two decades at most to make enough of a reputation for the marque that it will stand redefining itself when the concept becomes obsolete.
It will have to stand or fall on its own merits, at the end of the day - that's the cynical truth.
Equus said:
Really?
You don't sound very cynical to me.
The only connection between this car and previous TVR's is the badge, so what does it matter that you're a TVR owner of 20 years' standing?
It's a new car, by a new manufacturer, who has bought an old badge carrying a lot of baggage - much of it far from good.
It may or may not have been designed by Gordon Murray (it uses his iStream manufacturing process, and may have been designed by his team, but I somehow doubt that you'll find the initials 'GM' on many of the drawings). It may or may not be built to modern manufacturing standards: it will be built by a bunch of Welshman (no offence to the Welsh) whose experience and heritage in car manufacturing is precisely zero. Once the initial novelty has worn off, and the handful of dewy-eyed nostalgists with enough cash to purchase one new have shot their wad, it'll be competing with a lot of very competent, well-developed machinery, both new and nearly-new. And just to top it all off, it's heading into an era when non-hybrid performance cars are about to be legislated out of existence, so it's got two decades at most to make enough of a reputation for the marque that it will stand redefining itself when the concept becomes obsolete.
It will have to stand or fall on its own merits, at the end of the day - that's the cynical truth.
the merits, seem very many. GM has but his badge on the car, it is his name at stake, and yes, lots of people work for him.. the styling is another designer. but the chassis is a big deal.You don't sound very cynical to me.
The only connection between this car and previous TVR's is the badge, so what does it matter that you're a TVR owner of 20 years' standing?
It's a new car, by a new manufacturer, who has bought an old badge carrying a lot of baggage - much of it far from good.
It may or may not have been designed by Gordon Murray (it uses his iStream manufacturing process, and may have been designed by his team, but I somehow doubt that you'll find the initials 'GM' on many of the drawings). It may or may not be built to modern manufacturing standards: it will be built by a bunch of Welshman (no offence to the Welsh) whose experience and heritage in car manufacturing is precisely zero. Once the initial novelty has worn off, and the handful of dewy-eyed nostalgists with enough cash to purchase one new have shot their wad, it'll be competing with a lot of very competent, well-developed machinery, both new and nearly-new. And just to top it all off, it's heading into an era when non-hybrid performance cars are about to be legislated out of existence, so it's got two decades at most to make enough of a reputation for the marque that it will stand redefining itself when the concept becomes obsolete.
It will have to stand or fall on its own merits, at the end of the day - that's the cynical truth.
and I-stream could be a game changer, as this car has the performance figures to match a Mclaren 570, which costs £60k more (min).. the one thing this car is NOT about is nostalgia.. It is innovative and a big leap forward. It is going to be a British car, designed in the UK, UK owners and bombproof mechanically. and a lot cheaper to run than say a Mclaren.
It is front engined, very compact, light and I think will make a lot of modern sports cars look bloated and slow..
have you read the Car magazine review.. car journalists are usually the most cynical creatures on earth, especially when British sports cars are concerned... But even Car is very, very positive.
BJWoods said:
GM has but his badge on the car, it is his name at stake, and yes, lots of people work for him..
I'd say that as an engineer it would be very hard for him not to get involved in some of the detailed design. (He's already said that it's his last chance to design another sports car.)BJWoods said:
the merits, seem very many. GM has but his badge on the car, it is his name at stake
I thought you said you were a cynic? Murray is a competent designer of F1 cars, and has done a couple of good money-no-object road cars. He's not a God.
This is what he presented himself as the future of the automotive industry:
And how many people even recognise the last car he 'put his badge on'?:
If iStream were going to change the game, it would have done so by now. It's an interesting niche concept, but it isn't as revolutionary a the Murray Marketing Machine makes out (perhaps they need to trademark the concept of iHype?), and if it offers any overwhelming advantages, the rest of the industry haven't spotted them, yet.
Equus said:
BJWoods said:
I'm a tvr owner of 20 years and I thought pretty cynical.
Really?You don't sound very cynical to me.
The only connection between this car and previous TVR's is the badge, so what does it matter that you're a TVR owner of 20 years' standing?
It's a new car, by a new manufacturer, who has bought an old badge carrying a lot of baggage - much of it far from good.
It may or may not have been designed by Gordon Murray (it uses his iStream manufacturing process, and may have been designed by his team, but I somehow doubt that you'll find the initials 'GM' on many of the drawings). It may or may not be built to modern manufacturing standards: it will be built by a bunch of Welshman (no offence to the Welsh) whose experience and heritage in car manufacturing is precisely zero. Once the initial novelty has worn off, and the handful of dewy-eyed nostalgists with enough cash to purchase one new have shot their wad, it'll be competing with a lot of very competent, well-developed machinery, both new and nearly-new. And just to top it all off, it's heading into an era when non-hybrid performance cars are about to be legislated out of existence, so it's got two decades at most to make enough of a reputation for the marque that it will stand redefining itself when the concept becomes obsolete.
It will have to stand or fall on its own merits, at the end of the day - that's the cynical truth.
urquattroGus said:
You're a bundle of laughs aren't you.
I'm just old enough to remember another car designed by a widely lauded 'genius', to be built in a new factory in an area of high unemployment, that was going to revolutionise the sports car market and the way we built cars.It was rather better funded, too.
Still, we've got side exhausts with 'underfloor aerodynamics' and composite cladding panels, now... none of those worthless gimmicks like gullwing doors and stainless steel cladding, this time?
It's only to be hoped that the Design Consultant isn't embezzling the funding and the chief protagonist doesn't try to save the project by becoming a drug dealer, this time around, eh?
Equus said:
I'm just old enough to remember another car designed by a widely lauded 'genius', to be built in a new factory in an area of high unemployment, that was going to revolutionise the sports car market and the way we built cars.
It was rather better funded, too.
Still, we've got side exhausts with 'underfloor aerodynamics' and composite cladding panels, now... none of those worthless gimmicks like gullwing doors and stainless steel cladding, this time?
It's only to be hoped that the Design Consultant isn't embezzling the funding and the chief protagonist doesn't try to save the project by becoming a drug dealer, this time around, eh?
Wow, amazing negativity from one person. Thankfully you seem to be in the minority. The new TVR has been very well received by the motoring press, all the deposits have been sold, there is now a reserve list, the design of the car is current day with the right balance of hi tech and keeping it simple, the performance of the car should be on a par with sports cars costing £140k+ and it should be reliable as its uses components from tried and tested manufacturers. All for the same price as a Porsche 911S. I know what I would rather spend my money on and it's not the German car. It was rather better funded, too.
Still, we've got side exhausts with 'underfloor aerodynamics' and composite cladding panels, now... none of those worthless gimmicks like gullwing doors and stainless steel cladding, this time?
It's only to be hoped that the Design Consultant isn't embezzling the funding and the chief protagonist doesn't try to save the project by becoming a drug dealer, this time around, eh?
Equus said:
I'm just old enough to remember another car designed by a widely lauded 'genius', to be built in a new factory in an area of high unemployment, that was going to revolutionise the sports car market and the way we built cars.
It was rather better funded, too.
Still, we've got side exhausts with 'underfloor aerodynamics' and composite cladding panels, now... none of those worthless gimmicks like gullwing doors and stainless steel cladding, this time?
It's only to be hoped that the Design Consultant isn't embezzling the funding and the chief protagonist doesn't try to save the project by becoming a drug dealer, this time around, eh?
Out of interest since you seem to have very good knowledge of the financial side, care to disclose what funding TVR have. It was rather better funded, too.
Still, we've got side exhausts with 'underfloor aerodynamics' and composite cladding panels, now... none of those worthless gimmicks like gullwing doors and stainless steel cladding, this time?
It's only to be hoped that the Design Consultant isn't embezzling the funding and the chief protagonist doesn't try to save the project by becoming a drug dealer, this time around, eh?
You seem very clear that they are not as well funded........quite a statement from a man on the street.
I don't think any of us really know what funding they have.
I believe they have in place some serious investors, who these are I don't know but again you seem to be in the know.
Additionally they have secure funding from the Welsh government for the new factory.
Just don't get the negativity or the point of it......
Equus said:
essexstu said:
amazing negativity
As a long-time observer of the specialist sports car market, I prefer to think of it as 'realism'. 
Equus said:
As a long-time observer of the specialist sports car market, I prefer to think of it as 'realism'.
what is 'real' is that 500 people have placed a deposit and more are on the reserve list. Park the new TVR Griff next to a Porsche 911S and see what gets the most attention, what car has the best performance and what car sounds the best. That is the target market for the new TVR and the fact that the majority of deposit holders are not previous TVR owners demonstrates that Les & team have got it right. Car journalists are the most cynical creatures on earth (cos they have to be...) and Yet..
Car: Ben Miller - Return of the King
"The Griffith was an icon of TVR's last chapter. Now, in TVR's 70th anniversary year, the Griffith name is back on the bespoke British sports car of your dreams"
...and it gets more positive from there, the motor journalists have access to everything we do not, behind the scenes at GMD/TVR access to the designers and will have seen it all and asked all the tough questions.
Next months Evo article should be fun!
when Ben says.. "the bespoke British sportscar of your dreams"
- he is perhaps echoing his own dreams and that of more than a few other motoring journalists.
Car: Ben Miller - Return of the King
"The Griffith was an icon of TVR's last chapter. Now, in TVR's 70th anniversary year, the Griffith name is back on the bespoke British sports car of your dreams"
...and it gets more positive from there, the motor journalists have access to everything we do not, behind the scenes at GMD/TVR access to the designers and will have seen it all and asked all the tough questions.
Next months Evo article should be fun!
when Ben says.. "the bespoke British sportscar of your dreams"
- he is perhaps echoing his own dreams and that of more than a few other motoring journalists.
Edited by BJWoods on Friday 29th September 12:41
Equus said:
essexstu said:
amazing negativity
As a long-time observer of the specialist sports car market, I prefer to think of it as 'realism'. 1) Producing Customer cars:
Compared to actually getting a car into even low volume production, designing it and developing it is childs play. TVR must follow through now as production costs (buying facilities, machines, material, and hiring and paying workers) accrue. Here, i actually have a lot of confidence in GMD, because he's done low volume specialist production before a number of times. However, without a bottomless pit of cash, then yes, 'doing a Delorean' is still very much a possibility!
2) Model Life Span and market electrification:
The passenger car market is changing like never before. Models have a very short lifetime, as customers want the "latest thing". I'm going to suggest that a car now has as little as 12months in the limelight, maybe less, before something 'better' comes along. (I've put 'better' in quotes because this is often subjective rather than objective). Today, as the market rushes headlong into electrification it's even less clear about what the ultimate lifespan of a pure performance car company is. Assuming that it isn't either legislated out of buisness, or forced due to social pressures to conform to the 'new world ideals' then i could see it becoming an important niche, call it "the last bastion of old skool motoring" or whatever.
History is littered with failures because the passenger car market is volatile, fickle and very, very difficult to second guess..........
Digga said:
IIRC it was a 4.3 and it compared well to my 500.
430BV in fact as its my Griff. It is comparable to a 500 as I've done c10 1/4 mile drag runs against a good 500 (Taraka) and they are as near as damn the same times and terminal speeds.Its now back on AMIL's not the Estorils. The black ribbon was in memory of Peter Wheeler who died a month or so before this was taken.
FFG.
FlipFlopGriff said:
Digga said:
IIRC it was a 4.3 and it compared well to my 500.
430BV in fact as its my Griff. It is comparable to a 500 as I've done c10 1/4 mile drag runs against a good 500 (Taraka) and they are as near as damn the same times and terminal speeds.Its now back on AMIL's not the Estorils. The black ribbon was in memory of Peter Wheeler who died a month or so before this was taken.
FFG.
Lovely car that. I do think it looks better on the original wheels too. In my study at home, I have a lovely print of 'that' exact car, as per pic I've just Googled up below. I got the print before I had a Griff at all, then got a Cooper Green 4 litre, before finally fulfilling a dream of ordering an Ocean Haze one on the factory, for September 1998 build. Happy, happy days.
I recognise your username from way back. What happened to the 'Flip Flop' Griff then?
Digga said:
Equus said:
essexstu said:
amazing negativity
As a long-time observer of the specialist sports car market, I prefer to think of it as 'realism'. The problem with his assertion is that Lotus got involved in the project late on and did what they could to build a production car out of the disaster of a design that DeLorean had produced, it's a ridiculous comparison to make if referring to this TVR.
Had Lotus been involved from the start and come up with the basic platform concept it wouldn't have a s
tty rear mounted Renault engine or ridiculous body concept. The DeLorean really is a piece of st. All comparing the DeLorean project does is prove that even Lotus couldn't polish a turd.Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff