Top Gear-featured TVR Tuscan S for sale
It's been 25 years, but the Tuscan still looks lightyears ahead of its time
How is it that, with the advancements in composites, ever more sophisticated 3D modelling tech and a market hungry for fresh designs, arguably no one has managed to do what TVR could on a shoestring budget nearly 30 years ago.
That’s not to say there aren’t some properly wild designs out there. Supercar makers like Apollo show that anything is possible if you chuck enough money at something - but that’s where the problem lies: if you want something truly outrageous, you’ll need an equally outrageous pile of cash to get it. Not so with turn-of-the-millennium TVR. While the Griffith and Chimaera steered the company away from the wedge look of the '80s, and the Cerbera set the blueprint of TVR’s barmy interior, it was the arrival of the Tuscan in 1999 that saw all of the firm’s weird and wonderful ideas combine in one truly outlandish sports car.
You can thank Damian McTaggart and Paul Daintree, TVR’s then head of exterior and interior design respectively, for the car you see here. Sure, it was a front-engined sports car with two seats in the middle, but nothing about the Tuscan looked remotely like anything else on sale at the time. The headlights weren’t housed behind a single piece of clear plastic, but were instead split into four separate bulbs mounted straight into the bodywork and stacked on top of each other. The rear lights received the same treatment and were mounted just above the exhaust tips so as not to muck up the sleek, sculpted tail. However, the original didn’t leave any room for the indicators, which had to be mounted behind the rear window, so TVR mounted them lower on the facelifted model like this one here.
Once you found your way inside (the door release is underneath the wing mirrors, in case you’d forgotten), you’d be treated to one of the most unorthodox interiors ever devised. The dash looked as though it’d come straight from an alien spaceship, with a massive analogue speedo housed in a (presumably aluminium) shroud with various unmarked buttons and switches surrounding it. TVR would tone it down for the later Tuscan 2, but this first-generation car has the original interior in all its wackiness.
For such a wild-looking car, this 2001 example is surprisingly muted in black. But that’s really the only muted thing about it. Firstly, it’s a Tuscan S, so it gets the beefier 4.0-litre straight-six with 395hp under foot and some slight aero tweaks in the form of a front under tray and boot spoiler. Secondly, there’s a very good chance you’ve seen this car before, albeit a long, long time ago. That's because this is the car that featured in the first series of ‘new’ Top Gear. Remember the bit where Richard Hammond tried to prove that if you drive past a speed camera quickly enough it won’t go off? Well, he (and the Stig) managed to do just that in this very car, flying by the speed camera at ‘over 170mph’.
Not only that, but being a former press car means it’s featured in all your favourite magazines, too. It’s had three owners since then, and the ad suggests that it’s recently been ‘brought up to the standard it deserves’ with numerous tweaks and upgrades. It looks to be in superb condition, and is still wearing the ‘S6 TUS’ plate that can be seen during its TV appearance. You’ll need £46,995 to get your hands on it, and in return, you’ll be getting a Tuscan S that seems to have been pampered more than most. And for what it's worth, I think it looks bloomin’ good in black.
Could argue not even TVR could as they went bust soon enough
The current obsession of the PH Editorial Team with previous 'famous' owned' or 'tested' cars.....wonder what sort of person finds this an actual incentive to purchase; peurile for me.
I had my own some years later and it was brilliant in every way.
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