Cherished TVR Sagaris press car for sale
The Sagaris is last and arguably the best example of old-school TVR, and this one has celebrity past...
TVR’s naming policy was as eclectic as its cars. Many were named after mythical beasts; Siamese monsters that often breathed fire. But I’m a man of nature. I love the Cerbera. It’s pretty and organic, like the tree that bears its name, but like the tree, it also had a toxicity that you had to watch. It had an edge. That’s why, for me, it was the pinnacle of the marque. The models that followed just got evermore crazy looking, and by the time the Sagaris arrived, which for the record was named after a battle-axe, all bets were off. Its styling had gone full whacky racer.
But the truth is the Sagaris was probably the best TVR. Graham Browne and Lee Hodgetts produced their ‘out there’ design – that single-bubble roof and those torpedo tube, rear-mounted, side-exiting exhausts that, like a battle-axe, looked like they could slice off limbs. But the car was engineered by Daniel Boardman, and he knew his onions. He runs BMS Design Ltd., which is an engineering company involved in everything from motorsport to aerospace development. When he worked on the Sagaris, he insisted it was done properly. He didn’t want it to leak, for a start, and also tried to ensure nothing fell off. Was he completely successful in that regard? Only an owner would know the answer to that, but the consensus was that he got the handling right.
The Sagaris stuck with TVR’s spaceframe chassis cloaked by a lightweight, fibreglass body, which meant a kerb weight of just 1,078kg. But Boardman widened the front and rear tracks to give it better stability and insisted on the highest-quality components. Like Bilstein dampers, which he made sure weren’t just there to look the part – they were properly tuned to extract the best from them. As a result, motoring writers of the time all said similar things about the Sagaris: the chassis is without doubt TVR’s best to date. Sure, it still demanded proper skill to take it right to the edge, thanks to the lack of traction control and ABS, but when you did it was more forgiving. It was on your side. Not like previous TVRs, which were more mercurial than any mythical creatures, and needed quick-witted reactions to avoid their spiteful bite.
It wasn’t short of go, either. In my humble opinion a straight-six is the best engine for a sports car of this ilk, and TVR’s naturally aspirated 4.0-litre Speed Six – when it was working – was a cracker. 412hp at a heady 7,000rpm and 349lb ft of grunt means mega speed and manic noise is assured. If you use the five-speed gearbox properly it will get the Sagaris from 0-62mph in under four seconds.
Speaking of the motoring press, this one is the actual car that did the rounds at the time. The press car that TVR loaned to titles like Autocar, Evo and Top Gear. You can look it up on YouTube and watch Jeremy Clarkson hooning round Dunsfold back in 2005. In a cloud of tyre smoke, which brings me on to my next point. Should you buy an ex-press car? Err, well, they’re not the cars I would generally seek out. They tend to have a hard life in the hands of some very skilled drivers, and plenty of others who think they’re topflight peddlers but are, actually, ham-fisted halfwits. And no, I am not mentioning any names.
But this one is being offered by Hilton & Moss, which is a proper specialist car dealer and classic car restorer in its own right. On top of that, it acquired TVR specialist Bespoke Performance in 2020. It’s been through its workshop and had a new clutch, for example, and previously it’s been looked after by Str8Six, which is another renowned TVR specialist. All of this means that it should’ve had more than a new set of boots and a polish to make it bang on.
So, let’s sum up what you’re getting here: an example of arguably the best and certainly the last generation of original, Blackpool-built TVR; it’s famous in its own right, with over 3,000,000 views on YouTube and featured in multiple car magazines of the time; and it’s been cared for since its celebrity days by some of the most recognised TVR dealers in the land. If it doesn’t find a buyer soon, I’d be very surprised.
Although the tree's fruit is poisonous
In relation to ABS, I totally agree, it doesn't make it any less of a drivers car if it has ABS.
Nice car, always liked the Sag. Can't decide if having the t1ts ragged off it by car mags and then no doubt repaired is a good or bad thing.
Mythical creature, mythical creature, a tree. It's obvious really.
t and should have been implemented without question.However, I’ll bet stopping performance is probably about as good as anything else on the road. My Cerb is carrying 100kgs+ more and you’d have to be an utter hamfisted melon to lock up as the brakes are so over specified for the weight. I don’t know for certain but if the Sag doesn’t use the same setup, it’ll be using an even more aggressive one. It’ll start to peel your eyes out of their sockets before it snatches a wheel.
Not a defence safety wise as once a car is on the road there’s nothing to stop aforementioned numpty fitting crap tyres and hooning around at inappropriate speeds in the rain etc. but in terms of actual braking performance it’ll probably be right in the top percentiles of cars on the road.
Mythical creature, mythical creature, a tree. It's obvious really.
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