Crash Course: 7 Things You Need To Know About TVR

Learn about one of the most original sport cars before it comes back to America.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Lately, the rumor mills have been going on about the return of a famed British auto marquee to our shores. No, not MG—TVR. Never heard of 'em? Well, don't feel too bad, not many people know about the Blackpool, England based sports car maker. The one who's switched owners more times Death Row Records and had a penchant for building cars that looked like absolutely nothing else on the road. They didn't have the same... panache as other supercars—most didn't have anti-lock brakes or airbags or sound deadening, but they were dope. So before you start hearing Drake or Weezy name dropping them in the future, get familiar with the all but forgotten sports car maker.

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FOUNDED BY TREVOR WILKINSON
• It makes sense that one of the oddest car companies ever was founded by a dude who dropped out of school at 14 and started an apprenticeship at a local car shop. The name TVR—the first, fourth and sixth letters of his first name—came in 1949 when him and then partner, Jack Pickard, built their first car. Both men left the company they started in '62 to start a fiber-glass engineering company.

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THE DESIGN WASN'T ALWAYS CRAZY
• When reviewing one of their models in 2005, Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson remarked that TVR's looked as if they were designed by "a lunatic and then hit with an ax". They weren't always that way. Up until the mid-nineties, TVR built cars in the usual British sports car tradition. They had their own quirky styling, sure, but it was still within reason . Then the Chimaera came, which with its sloping hood, curvy grill and accentuation of past TVR features, peaked at the future of the company. But that future wouldn't be realized until 1996 when the Cerbera hit the block. The company's first car to use their own engine and first to seat four people would mark the design direction all future TVRs would take.

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HAD A RANGE OF ENGINES, BUT THERE'S WERE THE BEST
• Like any new sports car company, when TVR started they sourced their engines from two people: Ford and a British fork lift maker called Coventry Climax. In the British tradition they were all mid-powered four cylinder motors that powered the rear wheels. They would go on to use a bunch of Fords and Coventry's as well as some Rover engines. It wasn't until 1996 that the TVRs would be powered solely by their own engine. And it wouldn't be until an American got their hands on one in the 60s that they would have serious power under the hood.

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JACK GRIFFITH BROUGHT THEM TO AMERICA
• Jack Griffith owned a repair shop that serviced came to service some TVRs that were raced in some Stateside races. While fixing 'em up, he had the bright idea to drop a Ford V8 from a Shelby Corba into one. Of course, it didn't fit. But Griffith had a second bright idea to ask TVR to send him over some modified Grantura bodies able to fit larger engines. The result of this partnership was the Griffith 200, which at the time was the fastest TVR ever with a 0-60 time of 3.9 seconds and a top speed of 150mph.

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A 24 YEAR OLD MILLIONAIRE IS THE LATEST OWNER
• In their 64 history, TVR has had four owners. Two of which you never think had any knowledge of how to run a car companyt. There was Peter Wheeler who owned TVR for the longest amount of time—23 years. He was an chemical engineer who made his money selling equipment to oil companies and loved TVRs. He loved them so much he decided to buy them in 1981. Wheeler ushered in the modern TVR era—bringing back big V8s, helping with the designs and engineering whenever he could. In 2004, he sold the company to the 24-year-old son of a Russian banker, Nikolai Smolenski, for $15 million. Under Smolenski TVR hasn't seen the brightest of days, but according to reports, he's getting his shit together.

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THEY SHOULD HAVE BUILT THE CERBERA SPEED 12
• The most coveted TVR ever built was deemed undrivable by then owner Peter Wheeler. The car was built to compete in various GT series including the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the FIA and British GT Championship. While it did well in the British GT it suffered from reliability issues, but that didn't stop people from putting down a $200,000+ deposit for the road going version. However, when Mr. Wheeler test drove the final build of the road version, he deemed the car to wild for the road. Pity—if all the numbers and tests proved to be true, it would have been close in performance to the McLaren F1.

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JOHN TRAVOLTA DROVE ONE IN SWORDFISH

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