Taking the Typhon to LMC

[DonkeyApple]

First of all, a big hello to all the fellow Tiv owners I met on the whistlestop visit to the Le Mans Classic this weekend.

In true TVR style as I went to fill the car up on Thurday evening for an early Friday start there was a tremendous clatter from the engine bay as the air con belt decided it was the ideal moment to take early retirement. 6 hours later (2am) I am finally back home with the car ready to go.

Taking the whole front off is not the most complex of tasks but certainly time consuming!!! Huge thanks to RG for their midnight phone and text support and advice.

Once we drove off the Chunnel on Friday morning the heavens opened non stop as we headed towards Le Havre with the intention of dropping down to Falaise for lunch. In the end, after an episode where we could see no more than 20M in front as we crossed a bridge to Le Havre we bailed on that plan and found a rather perfect lunch stop just as the rain abated:



Staying in Vendome rather than Le Mans this time I was over the moon to be halted by a very polite gendarme just 5km out of Vendome to be informed that of all the cars that had been traveling in convoy mine had been singled out to recieve a special award.

After the torential rain through much of the journey my co-pilot spotted that there has at least half a CM of water residing in the passenger footwell, which was nice. But the car had behaved impecably all journey with the only downside being that without the AC working we had to resort to running the heating flat out with the windows closed each time it rained, so we did feel that we'd spent much of the day in a mobile sauna.

Saturday morning we headed off to Le Mans for the parade lap. I'd grossly miscalculated the distance we were from the circuit so we expected to miss the main event which we had headed down for, but luckily for us the queues were not bad and the parade session was running late so we made it past the legion of excessively helpful but very slow acting ticket scanners with only a few minutes to spare.

The sun was partially out at this point and the circuit drying with no standing water and the parade was a real event. Fantastic to see so many Tivs out and running so well. I hope everyone had as good a time as we did. It was the first time since getting the car back on the road I'd had the opportunity to open up the FFF engine much and I have to say it seemed to run extremely well. It wasn't the sort of event where you could follow the line or stick to the driest parts let alone really let loose but we managed to get a reasonable rate on in a couple of places but only managed to top out at about 150.

Not exactly the best footage in the world and certainly terrible sound:

http://youtu.be/JmD4S9n2Na4

http://youtu.be/2515w2e2w30

http://youtu.be/Ra4awPixQT4

I hope everyone got home safely.

Tim.

[angry jock]

Hello Tim,

The car looked amazing as you went blasting past me at the bottom of the Mulsanne straight!
Great to see it being used properly and going and sounding so well
hope you don't mind but I have linked vid 1 to my Facebook as you can see a bit of my car. If its a prob PM me and I'll delete it

[Mrs_T]

Hi Tim,

Typhon looks on top form. Spotted our Cerbera at the beginning of clip 1 and then at the beginning of clip 3. On both occasions we were heading away into the distance ;0). The videos are great. Top work by your camera person.

[DonkeyApple]

angry jock said:

Hello Tim,

The car looked amazing as you went blasting past me at the bottom of the Mulsanne straight!
Great to see it being used properly and going and sounding so well
hope you don't mind but I have linked vid 1 to my Facebook as you can see a bit of my car. If its a prob PM me and I'll delete it

No problem. My wife knew I was there and I wasn't breaking the speed limit so no need to be covert.

The car is surprisingly quiet inside so I've never really heard what noise it makes. And I'd rather bungee the wheel and climb out than let one of my friends drive it.

[DonkeyApple]

Mrs_T said:

Hi Tim,

Typhon looks on top form. Spotted our Cerbera at the beginning of clip 1 and then at the beginning of clip 3. On both occasions we were heading away into the distance ;0). The videos are great. Top work by your camera person.

At least that means I must have been quicker on lap 2

[jpp]

Saw you at the start but not after that - looked great.

[BCA]

Superb! I enjoyed that, even though the sound wasn't perfect, you still caught the six howling nicely a couple of times.

Glad to see the Typhon being used properly, it seems a couple of them are infact.

[JnP]

def great to see such a rare TVR on the road and on a video

[DonkeyApple]

Thanks. I think all three get used well. Bob is certainly out and about in his a lot.

I just need my youngest to be old enough to sit in a forward facing baby seat to be able to use mine a bit more.

[portzi]

Gutted, didnt see you on any of the laps, but what a fantastic day.

Mark

[DonkeyApple]

angry jock said:

Hello Tim,

The car looked amazing as you went blasting past me at the bottom of the Mulsanne straight!
Great to see it being used properly and going and sounding so well
hope you don't mind but I have linked vid 1 to my Facebook as you can see a bit of my car. If its a prob PM me and I'll delete it

I just saw your vid. I was in some kind of grim Ferrari sandwich!!!

The vid also reminded me of Saturday mornings as a kid, watching a black and white TV that we could never quite dial in for perfect reception

[DonkeyApple]

portzi said:

Gutted, didnt see you on any of the laps, but what a fantastic day.

Mark

It was a great outing wasn't it. Having seen quite a few of the other parade laps on YouTube I think we had by far the most sensible group. There was also a video of all the cars leaving, there were shed loads of us out there!