Monday 10th December 2012

PH Blog: the spirit of TVR

Alex thinks he's found the spirit of TVR alive and well - and not where you might think...

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The lingering death of TVR is a story we've all watched with nothing but dismay. Last week's news that the moulds and jigs for the old models have probably been scrapped, and the resultant conclusion that a vast amount of investment in entirely new models would be required to resurrect the brand, was just another page in this ever-more sombre chapter in British car making history.

OK, comparisons are bold but in spirit at least...

But all is not lost. There is a glimmer of hope. Last week, I drove a new car that, I thought, genuinely felt like a TVR. It made the same monstrous noise, a mass of angry snarling and thunderous crackles. It had the same desire to wag its tail and sense it'd just as soon pitch you into the undergrowth if you didn't give it enough respect. In short, it had the same exhilarating brutality of the TVRs we all fell in love with back in the late 90s.

This was no low-volume British sportscar, though. It was, in fact, a Merc SLS AMG Roadster. And although there are certain caveats to this opinion, there was nothing it put me in mind of more than a Chimaera or Griffith. Oh sure, it was much newer, more technologically advanced, and slightly less insane. The doors opened using actual door handles, for example. And no self-respecting TVR would ever be seen dead with a semi-automatic gearbox, even a pretty good one like the SLS's. But leave those caveats to one side, and in every other way, with the SLS, I reckon Merc has re-invented the V8 Tiv.

Slightly different price bracket, same spirit

Of course, all this comes at a distinctly un-Tiv-like price: £176,925. It's steep, I know. But a delivery mileage example in the PH Classifieds has already shaved £20,000 off that, and year-old coupes are now dropping close to the £100,000 mark, suggesting that the prices of these beasts might fall to more reasonable levels in a few years' time. OK, so they'll never be shed money, but they might at least become accessible to many of us. And the fact remains that, I reckon, there's simply nothing else out there at the moment that can come quite so close to replicating the thrill of TVR in a new or nearly-new package.

But I'm open to suggestions. And if there's a new car that I've forgotten about, that does the TVR thing even better, then please feel free to enlighten me!

Alex

[Quentin1]

Now this is thin ice me thinks :-)

[LuS1fer]

Corvettes - from the plastic bodies to the brutal exhaust notes you can generate from them.

[X5TUU]

for me the Noble M12 (only variant I have personally driven) has a very TVR-type feel to it and for decent money now as well

[Captain Muppet]

6/10

Trolling blog needed to mention winter tyres and finance.

[GarryGT6]

Struggling with this comparison.....

[loose cannon]

i just spat my tea over the pc

[Ecosseven]

LuS1fer said:

Corvettes - from the plastic bodies to the brutal exhaust notes you can generate from them.

+1 Corvettes are the closest thing to TVR's. Recent ones also have great build quality. Second hand prices are very strong in the UK.

[dingocooke]

Is it April 1st already???

How can you compare an honest simple product of a defunct company to something that is 6 times the cost??

Such a shame because you were on the verge of an interesting story with the moulds; and a bit of investigative journalism might find out about them or their demise, and then you would have a story worth reading.

[Guvernator]

Lol, comparing a CHEAP hand built British sportscar to a nigh on £200k German supercar, sorry but massive fail. OK on paper they may seem similar, they are both 2 seater roadsters after all but conceptually they are poles apart. One was a traditional hand built roadster built in a barn which offered amazing bang-for-buck, a hero car which the common man could aspire to owning, the other is an overpriced car, built by a major German manfucturer on an automated production line, solely created to cash-in on nostalgia from the hyper rich, I don't think you could have picked two more dissimilar roadsters if you'd tried.

I have to agree with the poster above who mentioned the Corvette which is probably the closest in spirit to the concept of a TVR, big engine, few driver aids, plastic body and above all cheap\affordable for mere mortals.

[scotty_d]

All well and good if you have super car finances to buy and run one. Then your pick of cars in the first place would doubtful to be a tiv.

[Triumph Man]

New boy's still within his probation period isn't he?

[BogBeast]

X5TUU said:

for me the Noble M12 (only variant I have personally driven) has a very TVR-type feel to it and for decent money now as well

Agree - Noble seems to me to be the closet to a 'spiritual' successor.

Alex - you couldn't be more wrong.

[300bhp/ton]

Like many others here, I can't quite fathom what Alex is really trying to say. Being RWD and having a loud exhaust hardly makes it "a TVR in spirit" when nothing else about the car is remotely similar.

[Dan Trent]

As Alex quickly zips up the PH flak jacket let me just point out that I said...

Dan's SLS review said:

For all the tech there's a pleasing old-school vibe too, the SLS offering up a hint of back to basics TVR Griffith fun, remixed for the modern age and with a Merc star on the front.

...this about the SLS when I drove it on the launch and Alex came back having driven it saying just the same thing.

No, these comparisons are not intended to be based on price, spec, construction, market position, intended customer or anything like that. Purely spirit and the sense of fun you get at the wheel. And the noise.

I think the point is that for all the SLS's price point and status AMG has, at heart, made it into a bit of a lairy V8 roadster with the same sense of fun as Blackpool's finest. Which is a good thing and good on 'em! And probably not what you'd have expected, having just clambered into a £200K supercar.

Play nice!

Dan

[Twincam16]

Surely the closest thing you can get to a new TVR is David Gerald's new CWR Titan. Deliberately designed to follow on from TVR (he would have bought the rights to the name had Smolensky kept hold of it with the intention of slapping it on wind turbines), it features TVR-derived chassis and suspension, it looks like a TVR (think a cross between a Grantura and a V8S), it has a huge 6.2-litre Chevrolet V8 and it costs £60k, which sounds like a lot but is realistically what you'd pay for a TVR these days were they still going.

He is building an initial run of six next year, then they'll be build-to-order after that. He's keeping production capacity deliberately small in order to avoid running into the problems so many low-volume car producers do - ie overambition and overcapacity.

I like it:



Also - 'Titan' - well it's a whole lot more 'TVR'-sounding than 'SLS AMG'.

http://www.cwrcars.com/showroom/index.php/news

[binnerboy]

I am inclined to agree with comments, vette or noble or even some kit car with a V8 is more TVR than that Merc.

For me TVRs have always been about epic performance and murderous handling for man maths justifiable money

[em177]

Twincam16 said:

Surely the closest thing you can get to a new TVR is David Gerald's new CWR Titan. Deliberately designed to follow on from TVR (he would have bought the rights to the name had Smolensky kept hold of it with the intention of slapping it on wind turbines), it features TVR-derived chassis and suspension, it looks like a TVR (think a cross between a Grantura and a V8S), it has a huge 6.2-litre Chevrolet V8 and it costs £60k, which sounds like a lot but is realistically what you'd pay for a TVR these days were they still going.

He is building an initial run of six next year, then they'll be build-to-order after that. He's keeping production capacity deliberately small in order to avoid running into the problems so many low-volume car producers do - ie overambition and overcapacity.

I like it:



Also - 'Titan' - well it's a whole lot more 'TVR'-sounding than 'SLS AMG'.

http://www.cwrcars.com/showroom/index.php/news

Why have I not heard of this before?!

OT: 406 coupe rear lights?

and ps, sorry PH but really don't get the comparison in the blog. Pretty poor. I bet the rest of this thread talks about TVR's and doesn't mention anything about the SLS

[Garlick]

An SLS met my Chim earlier on PH: http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyI...

[Tib]

I've always bought into the idea that part of TVR ownership was the idea that they are in fact crap. They're unreliable, in certain areas poorly finished and they have more quirks than Bjork.
This all added up to the fact that on the very rare occasion on the right road at the right time everything just fell into place and you appreciated it. More soulful than any 3 pointed star machine.

Admittedly mind, I've never owned a TVR, so... Correct me at will.

[Monsterlime]

Twincam16 said:

Surely the closest thing you can get to a new TVR is David Gerald's new CWR Titan. Deliberately designed to follow on from TVR (he would have bought the rights to the name had Smolensky kept hold of it with the intention of slapping it on wind turbines), it features TVR-derived chassis and suspension, it looks like a TVR (think a cross between a Grantura and a V8S), it has a huge 6.2-litre Chevrolet V8 and it costs £60k, which sounds like a lot but is realistically what you'd pay for a TVR these days were they still going.

He is building an initial run of six next year, then they'll be build-to-order after that. He's keeping production capacity deliberately small in order to avoid running into the problems so many low-volume car producers do - ie overambition and overcapacity.

I like it:



Also - 'Titan' - well it's a whole lot more 'TVR'-sounding than 'SLS AMG'.

http://www.cwrcars.com/showroom/index.php/news

Who cares about the SLS? I want this!