It's the boutique British
Manufacturer with the wildest sports car you've never seen bad names and bad luck couldn't keep this
upstart down because they found the tried-and-true formula of fun less weight and
My man, this is everything you need to know to get up to speed on TVR
Unless you British or into club racing you may have never heard of TVR
The odd-looking little sports cars are legendary for cram and giant engines and to featherweight chassis z' and raising hell on the tracks
But thanks to bad luck poor business decisions and even more bad luck now
They're just trying to claw their way
back in a 21st century that's traded visceral bliss for stats and
Nurburgring times it all started in
1946 when a 23 year old chap by the name of trevor wilkinson opened up his first automotive garage in Blackpool
England he called it Trev car motors which
Kind of sounds like a five-year-old made-up
Car company name about a year later when he was six his buddy Jack Picard joined him
They renamed the company TVR engineering sure that was just the first middle and last letters in Trev car
But at least it sounded like adults were in charge instead of focusing on working on other people's cars
They started developing their own and my 1949 TVR had built most of its official first car the TVR
Num1. These guys are awesome at making names
This rear wheel drive car was Frankenstein together using an eleven hundred and seventy two CC
Side-valve engine from a Ford van and the live axle springs dampers brakes and steering from a small British family car called the Morris eight
With the rolling chassis complete they hired coach builder les out that lets dale
Sorry les dale to body the car and that's where TV r's long history of no good very bad
Astoundingly awful luck begins. You see before les even got the body on the car
He crashed it the guys were able to repair the chassis and les managed to make the car look like a million bucks
well
Actually, he made it look like 325 British pounds because that's how much Trevor's cousin paid for it
But ever the optimist Trevor and Jack's set to work building the better TV our chassis sourcing running gear from various
manufacturers like Austin Ford and mgs and in
1955 TVR developed a new semi space frame with a backbone it allowed the driver to sit in the car
Rather than just on the car
With the drivers booty - only six inches off the ground
The center of gravity was low and that improved handling TVR paired the new frame with the VW bugs independent suspension
Which ensured it stayed glued to the track because you know bugs are
Known for their handling. Now this new short wheelbase chassis paired. Well with several engines the most notable of which was the Coventry climax
FWA the
FW stood for featherweight and it was a popular engine for small open-top racers because it offered lots and lots of her spurs
Per pound an American racer named ray Seidel ordered several TVRs with this engine pairing and wrapped them in
Beautiful aluminum bodies and it worked because race started kicking on the tracks of his home state of, New Hampshire
And people were noticing they were like live free or die that guy's fast
so fast
In fact that Ray partnered up with TVR to sell this little chassis in the US under the name plate
Jomar which was derived from I'm not kidding guys. It was derived from raised two kids. Nick's name's Joanna and Mark
It's as if Joe, Marv
and Trev car were always meant to be partners with everyone in the TVR bubble pumped about the
The Jomar they started cranking them out and shipping them to new hampshire sucks hurt, but they didn't really sell that well
Which ray thought it was because it was kind of ugly
So he suggested that TVR build a fastback version which of course they did because they're best buds bad at naming and in
1959 TVR came out with the grand cheer up
They advertised it with the slogan only nine hundred eighty pounds and it out handles everything
While the car handled great on the track, it didn't really handle great driving a grocery store or to work or to church her
Honestly back then the only places you really drove to or grocery stores work in church, you get my point
It wasn't a very good daily driver wasn't very good around the city and in 1962 TVR
engineering went bankrupt
Fortunately though TBR had a side hustle engineering company for exploiting tax loopholes
Which was aptly named grand sheera engineering
This associate company took over production of the grand tira and started a tradition of making huge publicity
Splashes the first being an expensive leap into the 24 hours of them all that same year
What a swing
They answered two grand cheers with mg engines in the 2-liter class at Lima and were
excited to see how the plucky little cars would perform but
they must have knocked over a salt shaker and driven under a ladder because
They failed both cars were crashed and hastily rebuilt just before the race one grande charrid
It'd n't make it to the start and the other one was the first car to be retired because it overheated after only
three laps in just a few months after their
Embarrassing outing outlet mall a Ford dealer from Long Island by the name of Andrew Griffith reached out with an idea that would change
TVR for Ferg
Andrew loved the grandeur chassis and seeing the success Carroll Shelby had with his AC Cobra
He thought he'd cram a 289 small-block v8 into the TVR. The only problem was that it didn't fit as big problem
So he asked TVR to make a special chassis to accommodate the powerplant in
1964 the griffith was born
Just keeping this naming tradition alive what's the name Griffith, although I don't have a lot of room to talk
I did name my car the pumphrey if I would do the Griffith was a bona fide home run and
orders poured in for the Cobra killer, but TBR's luck wasn't quite
good yet and a series of Doc strikes in both the US and
England made it hard for TVR to ship Griffiths to the US and since TVR couldn't sell cars
They couldn't pay forward for the drivetrain
So Ford was like yo, dude, you're cut off and TVR had shut the factory
however, TVR already had a concept car designed by the
Italians called the Trident named after the gum and they scrapped all their money together to show the Trident at the Geneva Car Show in
March of
1965 where it grabbed the attention of Arthur Lilly and his son Martin now the Lilly's had engineering backgrounds in a business
assembling Lotus Elan kit cars
They already owned shares and grandeur
Engineering and when they heard TVR was going under the Lily's decided to buy the company and turn things around the Lily's
Immediately hired a guy named Jerry Marshall to drive the Griffith in races
Jerry was sort of like the Ricky Bobby of England and fans loved that
He drifted corners and joked about driving. Tiny racecars saying stuff like I couldn't get my boots in that call
Jimmie Johnson, I mean like yeah, man, she's a good race out there. I couldn't get my people in that car
Okay back to you in the studio Rutledge
Not only was he hilarious with his peeps in the car jokes
He also won a lot now TVR leveraged Gary's success to launch the Vixen in
1967 for the Vixen TVR took a step back from the v8 crammed in a small car formula
So the Vixen came with smaller engine options ranging from superlight
1,300 CC for bangers to V sixes now
They were selling between five and eight cars a week and business was definitely good
but not great and TVR decided that the brand needed to make another big publicity splash so
They hired model Helen Jones to pose naked with the vixen at the 1970 British Motor Show
And it was a huge success
because of course it was the Vixens went flying off the shelves and everyone was excited to see what
TVR had planned for the next British Motor Show in
1971 and guess what guys they did not disappoint
They rolled out two new cars Basanti and the M series. Okay, and since now there were two new models
Tdr. Figured hmm, maybe two naked girls
Now you might be asking yourself because I
Did - how much naked is too much naked if you asked no one there's no such thing
But if you ask people at the British Motor Show, the answer is - the show threatened to ban TVR for life
But it was all worth it orders for TVR M series is started rolling in it seemed like nothing could stop them now
That's a good story. That's like you keep doing it is that it happens, you know, and then their factory burned down
Oh, you gotta be kidding me bad. I know
So they're low on dough and they needed to rush to debut their newest car
The Tasman the Tasman was designed by former Lotus man Oliver
Winterbottom and yes, that is the most adorable names that these lips have ever uttered
When's your bottoms wedge design was a complete departure from previous TV ours and was not particularly
well received
In fact TV our boss Martyn Lily described the car as a big disappointment
Which is also how my dad scribes me now as they say
Timing is everything
And TV ours timing
Sucks, okay
The commercial launch of the Tasman in 1980
Coincided with a huge recession in England and at this point Martin had had enough so he sold the company to another TVR
enthusiast a guy named Peter wheeler under wheelers management and the British recession TVR didn't
Sell a lot of cars, but they did win a bunch of races in
The Tasman last year of production the higher powered 450 seac variant
121 of the 24 races that it entered fast-forwards in 1986 TVR debuted the S series
They threw away the wedge design
No one liked good idea and returned to the classic looks of the successful M series the base model v6
s was a huge success for daily drivers and weekend racers alike and the optional v8s became a bucket list car for
Enthusiasts the v8s went from 0 to 60 in only 4.9 seconds was faster than the Ferrari Testarossa
the Lotus has pre in the Porsche Carrera - the 90s was definitely the best time for
TVR and it looked like all that bad luck was a thing of the past
Oh good, you know these guys have really been through it. But you know what they stuck dinner scruples and it got through it
They even brought back the Griffith nameplate in 1991 along with a luxury version called the chimera in
1992 and a 2+2 coupe a 96 called the Kerr Bera me my sister's used to love player care bears TVR also
manufactured their own engines for the first time the AJ p6 and the a
Jp-8 better known as the speed 6 and the speed a then in 1999
TVR debuted the Tuscan and the styling of this car was bonkers
It looks like a Dodge Viper had a baby with a spider
All right
The headlights were a bunch of different eyes
And the taillights were mounting super low right above the exhaust
The turn signals were on the B pillars and door handles were buttons under the side mirrors. There were also two hoods
one small one that gave you access to almost nothing and the second one that was bolted down a
Hood that's bolted down
well
The battery just happened to be mounted upside down
Under there and exposed to the underside of the car and debris would get in it and like the entire engine bay on fire
With no way to put it out without unbolting the hood
Then in 2003 TVR debuted their last new model
You can actually get in and drive the Sagaris
now the Sagaris was wheelers swan song and the epitome of everything TVR had become under his ownership at
twenty-three hundred pounds that weighed the same as a new Miata, but under the hood was a
406 horsepower
naturally aspirated inline six
That's amazing
Now it's at this point that you may be wondering James
Why haven't I seen any of these new TV ours at cars and coffee or on bring a trailer?
Well, it's because of wheelers stubbornness and questionable business decisions. He didn't like ABS
All right. He didn't like airbags
He didn't like Stability control because he thought they gave drivers a false sense of security and as a result
You can't drive these cars in the US, which is the first time TBR's bad luck
Became our bad luck
Trippi
Right after the debut of the cigars wheeler sold the company to a Russian banker named Nikolai
Smolenski and under Nikolai
No new models have come out now in 2013 Nikolai sold TVR to some British businessmen who formed TVR?
Automotive Limited well
They primarily aimed to provide parts for classic TV ours still on the road in 2017
The group did debut a brand new Griffith featuring a Cosworth enhanced 5-liter v8 borrowed from a Ford Mustang GT
TVR said the car would go on sale in 2019, but
Check the calendars that didn't happen. I guess the only
People with worse luck than TVR are the auto enthusiasts that love them
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