News : TVR re-re-reborn at Geneva 2012?

Keith Adams

TVR website reveals little, but promises much
TVR website reveals little, but promises much

TVR’s central holding company in Austria has launched a brand-new website, complete with an horrific new marque logo, which breaks links with the Lilley-Wheeler era – and far more iconic – badge. On the website, the new car options are for a ‘reborn TVR’ with full factory warranty, which means a complete overhaul of a Griffith to Sagaris. This includes a new 6.2-litre 426bhp 420lb ft V8 engine, and a reinforced five-speed gearbox.

The company can also build new a Sagaris, Tuscan convertible, Tuscan MkII,  Cerbera, Chimaera and Griffith to individual specifications. That V8 is a GM LS3, and for those familiar with the AC MkVI, it’s a great little package, perfect for shifting lightweight sports cars along at a fair old clip.

The rumours of a new TVR convertible won’t go away, either – and a spokesman for the company told AROnline last year that a car had been designed and it was looking for a partner with whom to build it. It could have been Gullwing in Germany (who builds the AC MkVI), but the two parties couldn’t come to an agreement…

Head over to the TVR website for more information.

 

Keith Adams

18 Comments

  1. You know what’s awesome? Relaunching an impractical, thirsty, and generally poorly made specialist sportscar mid recession.

    Always goes well, that one 🙂

  2. Glad to see TVR back. Highly unlikely it will be back in Blackpool though.
    Have they ditched their straight-six engines in favour of a Chevvy V8 then? Whether they have or not, it looks like they will still be making powerful, loud and lairy sports cars. Which is a good thing.

    P.S:Hate the new logo though. They should have kept it as it was.

  3. New logo doesn’t bother me, fits with the strangely monochrome website. If it was a company re-building old Healys fair enough, but it all seems like another foreign take on “britishness”! Now where have we seen that before?

    On an aside I understand that MG have signed Graham Hill and Terry Thomas to appear in a series of hilarious new ads! …oops aren’t they dead? Won’t matter so’s the brand.

  4. This does not feel right – too long has passed since the last TVR and the final models were not the success of the Chimera and Griffith.

    The use of the Corvette engine makes a lot of sense but they need to make it in the UK of it will be another ‘so what’ sports car.

    @KeithB – being dead did not stop Steve McQueen being in an advert for the Ford Puma and as for using Terry Thomas I like the idea – definitely not an absolute shower!

  5. I imagine the AJP staight-six and V8 engines would be too expensive too build in comparison to buying in an off-the-shelf unit from General Motors, while also likely needing further development work to meet current and forthcoming emission legislations, without loosing too much power output in the process.

    I always liked the Chimaera with its TVR Power built Rover V8 engine – a wonderful soundtrack – that always seemed happy being revved one minute and docile the next. The targa roof arrangement with removable central hard panel that could be stored in the boot, together with Ned the dog’s influence in the styling for the front indicator unit surrounds were neat touches.

    A shame that production or refurbishment (however you wish to refer to it) is no longer here in the UK.

  6. OK, this is just Nikolai Smolensky, the previous owner of TVR and the current keeper of the TVR moniker recycling old vehicles. There are no new cars on offer, they are going to be rebuilt by TVR Power in the same way as the Jensen Interceptor R and MG LE 50 are by their respective over-haulers. The LS3 is being used to give it some grunt for relatively low bucks I believe as the Melling engine needs a lot of money and tender care!

    I personally wouldn’t want to deal with a guy who’s business is now in Austria and who has been promising ‘new’ TVR’s, made in various parts of the world, for years!!

  7. David 3500@ 7
    this is al melling we are talking about,the man behind silk cut jaguar heads,lola and judd engines,consultancy work for GM,ferrari,lambo,porsche to name a few.the first tvr’s with ajp engines had lower emissions at 70mph than a fiesta on a forecourt with its petrol cap off!im not knocking what you are saying,but a small company like tvr(under peter wheelers ownership)managed to make these engines and sell them reasonably cheap for the supercar thrills they gave.Some say they were unreliable but bear in mind these engines were raced in the tuscan series and were not rebuilt for three years!anyway,tvr is not what it was,owned by some spoilt russian kid having a wet dream about being a car maker its as blunt as that.

  8. @AndrewP – maybe Alec Guinness could do the MG ads? I’m thinking Ealing comedy set, “gor blimey” RADA accents, foggy old London Town etc.

    You know the sort of thing – emphasise the golden days of British motoring, they could even bring back rickets.

  9. If TVR really does make a comback and they make a go of it – fantastic. I wish them luck.

    Regarding that logo that you all seem not to like: It’s not a new one, it is of course the original TVR logo on the Trevor Wilkinson TVRs up to 1965. I believe Trevor Fiore designed the new logo whilst he was about it designing the TVR Trident, which of course sadly just nicely coincided with one of TVR’s periodic bankruptcies…

  10. crap “new” branding, i worked at a TVR garage for 6 years mid ’80s to early ’90s, worked on many a v6 & v8 wedge & ‘s’ + Griffs. time to let TVR rest now after all these years.

    we have heard many a promise before about other british car makes which have either not come to fruition or lasted long.

    R I P TVR

  11. It is easy to see that the company and it’s owner may come under fire, as the end of the Blackpool TVR was less than pretty.

    As for the Austrian TVR, it makes sense to start by creating new or reborn versions of the company’s most popular models, and in doing so create a connection to any new cars they subsequently produce.

    As for the use of a, relatively cheap mass produced engine, for a small scale company in todays emission led world, makes perfect sense.

    The weakest link, in a commercial sense, of the Wheeler era cars was the engines. For a small company the size of TVR, to constantly have to invest in meeting ever tighter emission controls was only ever going to lead to one conclusion.

    Nikolai Smolensky’s poor management of the company only accelerated the inevitable.

  12. Yep, logo isn’t new – it’s the original one.

    As far as I understand, cars will be built at TVR Power in Coventry – one could say this is a TVR Power (the last vestige of ‘original’ TVR and doing not too badly) venture and a natural extension of their services, with Smolenski’s blessing (and under his license – TVR Power always used the TVR brand name under license from Nikolai, anyway).

    Of all the planned relaunches hitherto this seems to be the most realistic one by far, although the £80-85,000 Dom of TVR Power mentioned as what a brand new TVR would/should cost seems a bit more like it than the £99,600 in ‘new TVRs’ price list.

    The prices for partial/complete rebuilds of existing cars, however, are quite competitive.

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