racing modifications car is given to any vehicle that has been altered from its original state. The term denotes a car that has been significantly altered for the purpose of appearance or for increased engine or handling performance, the process by which this is carried out is known as car tuning. The term is generally used in reference to modern vehicles that have been altered, and not typically used to describe other types of racing modifications cars such as Hot rods
As Formula 1's most exciting season in a while rages on, I've struggled to keep up in terms of write-ups. Thus, the Canadian and European races will appear on here out of sequence, hopefully during F1's three-week summer break across August. You've probably already seen the races, but if I write them then I can refer back to them in future.
Anyway, three weeks ago, Formula 1 came home. Silverstone played host to the first ever race in the first ever Formula 1 World Championship, in 1950. England today is home to eight of the twelve teams (with Ferrari and Toro Rosso in Italy, Sauber in Switzerland and HRT in Spain) and many drivers as well, such as the McLaren boys and Mark Webber - yes, the latter is Australian, but he moved here because he knows what weather we have and "relishes a challenge". I may have made that last bit up. At any rate, most of the management is also British, and frankly, we just own this sport, and many many other motorsports too. Quite why we didn't add an Olympic Grand Prix to the 2012 Games, I don't know... Maybe the weather would've been a problem, or maybe Senegal would've complained that they couldn't afford to build a car for the event. Or maybe after the race weekend Silverstone endured, people would've been slightly put off the idea. It rained like Chuck Norris was pissing through a sieve for Friday and Saturday, meaning that Practice and Qualifying were interrupted and the car parks were so muddy that people without reserved spots were actually told not to go to qualifying, lest they turn the car parks into a mud bath Glastonbury would envy, although everyone was encouraged to go to the actual race the next day. Hard-standing for next year, guys?
Starting Grid: 1st - F Alonso, 2nd - M Webber, 3rd - M Schumacher, 4th - S Vettel, 5th - F Massa, 6th - K Räikkönen, 7th - P Maldonado, 8th - L Hamilton, 9th - R Grosjean, 10th - P di Resta,11th - N Rosberg, 12th - D Ricciardo, 13th - B Senna, 14th - N Hülkenberg*, 15th - S Pérez, 16th - J Button, 17th - K Kobayashi**, 18th - V Petrov, 19th - H Kovalainen, 20th - T Glock, 21st - P de la Rosa, 22nd - N Karthikeyan, 23rd - J-E Vergne***, 24th - C Pic* [>107%, but allowed to race]
*5-place Gearbox Penalty. **5-place Collision Penalty for hitting Felipe Massa (Euro GP)
***10-place Collision Penalty for side-swiping Heikki Kovalainen at high speed (Euro GP)
Mercifully, Sunday was dry, although clouds threatened all day. Having successfully out-qualified a noticeably-quick Red Bull RB8 in his ever-improving Ferrari F2012, Fernando Alonso got off to a quick start, but for once, so did Mark Webber, meaning Alonso had to defend immediately Sebastian Vettel was the Red Bull with the slow start, dropping behind Felipe Massa at Abbey and almost losing out to Kimi Räikkönen in the newer infield complex. On the exit of The Loop, Romain Grosjean glanced Paul di Resta's right rear tyre, puncturing it and sending him sliding off at Aintree. He limped back to the pits for a new set of tyres, but the rear floor damage meant that in the end he only made it five laps into his home Grand Prix. Meanwhile, Jenson Button was making up places, climbing from 16th to 12th in half a lap, Pastor Maldonado got past Kimi, and Nico Hülkenberg ran wide out of Copse corner, rejoining behind Sergio Pérez in 11th. He tried to get past down the Hanger Straight and into Stowe, but Pérez didn't bend easily, even going around the outside at Vale so he could pass the German in his Force India up the inside of Club to take the place. Aside from Massa passing Vettel, the sharp end of the grid remained the same.
After Lap 1: 1st - F Alonso, 2nd - M Webber, 3rd - M Schumacher, 4th - F Massa, 5th - S Vettel, 6th - P Maldonado, 7th - K Räikkönen, 8th - L Hamilton, 9th - B Senna, 10th - S Pérez,11th - N Hülkenberg, 12th - R Grosjean, 13th - J Button, 14th - K Kobayashi, 15th - N Rosberg, 16th - J-E Vergne, 17th - D Ricciardo, 18th - T Glock, 19th - P de la Rosa, 20th - N Karthikeyan, 21st - K Kovalainen, 22nd - C Pic, 23rd - P di Resta, DNS - V Petrov (engine failure during Formation Lap).
Romain Grosjean didn't start lap 2 very well, running wide at Abbey and allowing Jenson Button past, but both Grosjean and Kamui Kobayashi tried overtaking the Brit as he braked too early for Village, with Grosjean on the inside and Kobayashi on the outside. The Japanese driver went right around Button and even squeezed down the inside of Grosjean - who also passed Button - into The Loop, before running wide and allowing Grosjean back through. At the other end of the Wellington Straight, Kimi Räikkönen tried a move on the outside of Pastor Maldonado, getting past but running wide onto the green fuzzy stuff beyond the kerb, which was holding water, meaning Maldonado retained his place as they entered Luffield. Nico Rosberg had had a bad first lap, losing four places, but he successfully overtook the Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne around the outside at Brooklands.
After the familiar complex of Copse corner, Maggots, Becketts and Chapel, Kobayashi had another go at Grosjean, getting him down the inside of Stowe. It was at this point that the Frenchmen darted into the pit lane for a new nose, as his Lotus was damaged from the contact with di Resta's Force India. Later on lap 3, Massa went for a look down the inside of Michael Schumacher at Copse, but only the brave or stupid try a pass there, especially on Michael Schumacher, so backing out was a good call... except that he ran wide with oversteer, allowing Sebastian Vettel to get right up behind him, trying down the inside at Becketts and staying alongside him before Massa pulled away on the inside of the left-hander before Chapel and retaining his place, even after another attempt at Vale. Massa continued pressuring former team mate Michael Schumacher as the race moved on.
The new-layout Silverstone has added more overtaking spots to the very high-speed circuit, but even with DRS down the Wellington Straight, the cars were closely following one another without any major overtaking moves happening. The wait for tyre stops in the 52-lap race ended on lap 10, when Sebastian Vettel came in to swap Options for Primes. A lap later Pastor Maldonado and Sergio Pérez pitted in for Primes as well, and when they both headed into Brooklands, Maldonado went for a move up the inside, but lost grip under braking and slithered into the closely-alongside Sauber C31 of Pérez, sending them both sideways into the run-off area, at which point they banged wheels at a dodgy angle and Pérez's rear suspension broke, meaning that for a second race in a row, Pastor Maldonado had been involved in an incident that spelled the end for a fellow driver's race. While this one was much more of a racing incident (how are you supposed to avoid suddenly losing grip under braking?) than the collision with Hamilton in Valencia, it doesn't exactly help improve his current image of being an inexperienced hot-head who doesn't respect other drivers, as a heated Pérez pointed out in an interview after the incident...
Fernando pitted on lap 16. Unlike the rest of the grid (except Jenson Button), the lead Ferrari started the race in Prime tyres, meaning they would go longer into the race before pitting, although he only squeezed an extra four or five laps out of them, perhaps due to heavy fuel. Ferrari put another set of Primes on his car. The McLarens were doing better for tyre life, with Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton also on Prime tyres. Hamilton was still on his original rubber on lap 18, when Alonso caught back up to him. The Spañard pressured him for half a lap, eventually getting past in The Loop by entering wide and exiting on his inside , using DRS to get away... until Lewis dropped in behind and picked up a massive slipstream, getting back past the Ferrari to the delight of the crowd, at least half of which were wearing orange McLaren caps. Alas, on old tyres, he ran wide out of Brooklands and Alonso passed him once and for all into Luffield. Very entertaining! And intriguing that the chasing McLaren got a draft from the Ferrari's open rear wing. Does the air going straight through the wing flow over the McLaren effectively? I don't know. Hamilton finally pitted on lap 22, and for once it was without incident. On his new Option tyres, he watched the battle between Kimi Räikkönen and Michael Schumacher as he exited behind them, and he wanted in. Räikkönen passed Schumacher with DRS quite easily, but Hamilton had to go for a harder move, into Copse where Felipe Massa had bottled it early on. Schumacher's worn tyres made it easier for Lewis to nip down the inside and carry on.
Lewis did only 7 laps on Options before pitting in for more Primes, which were the tyre to be on at that point. Those were to be the tyres he finished the race on. He eventually caught up to his team mate, on lap 31, and they raced eachother for a bit, although again, the difference in tyre quality meant that Button was easily passed through Copse, even being passed in an opportunist move by Romain Grosjean, who was the car Lewis ended up racing against strategically. Grosjean passed him with DRS on lap 36. At this point the race was a strategy game, with Ferrari keeping Option tyres off Alonso's car until the last part of the race, whereas the Red Bulls were doing something more typical, starting soft and going hard. How would they stack up by the end? Alonso pitted five laps earlier than Gary Anderson reckoned was necessary, on lap 37, coming out a second or two ahead of Mark Webber in 2nd place. Meanwhile, Kamui Kobayashi was busy running over his pit crew. He locked up under braking for his pit box and side-swiped four or five Sauber pit crew members who had no room to escape. He was later fined and was of course apologetic about the ordeal.
By lap 45 of 52, Webber had halved his gap, knowing that with more durable tyres, he could use them more aggressively. Within a second of the Ferrari at the start of lap 46, he could use DRS down the Wellington Straight, to no avail this time. A situation similar to the Bahrain GP arose, where if Webber didn't make a move very soon, his one and only chance would disappear and Alonso would pull away on fresher, faster tyres. He still wasn't close enough to pass in Brooklands on lap 47. A lap later, after Michael Schumacher had passed Lewis Hamilton further down, he was close enough, using DRS to take Alonso around the outside of Brooklands, having the inside to finish him off into Luffield and take the lead of the race on lap 48 of 52. He seized his one chance and was rewarded with victory for the second time in three years.
The battle for 10th place raged on in the closing stages, with Bruno Senna having been trying to get past Nico Hülkenberg for a long time, finally doing so into Brooklands while a chasing Jenson Button watched from behind. Hülkenberg tried to retake the place into Copse, but it didn't work out for him, and he ran wide. So wide, in fact, that Jenson Button was able to just drive past him, along with Kamui Kobayashi. Bad luck Nico! Button didn't manage to get past Senna in time, meaning that while he did come back from qualifying 18th and starting 16th to get a point at his home race, Williams scored two points at their home race.
And so Mark Webber became the second repeat winner of the season (after Alonso won in Valencia), having also won at Monaco. It was Red Bull - Ferrari behind them as well, with Sebastian Vettel finishing 3rd, ahead of a resurgent Felipe Massa. The Lotuses came 5th and 6th, while Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton finished ahead of the battle for 9th and 10th. This meant that Hamilton was unable to improve on his lacklustre qualifying position, finishing where he started. It wasn't a classic British Grand Prix, but it was a perfectly fine race considering the high drama this season has provided so far. No British success on home soil, but as you may have heard, there's another sporting event on at the moment where that might not be the case. A Write-up on the German GP will appear next week, when I'm back from my holiday. Results and points below:
Audi R8 V10 Plus The Audi R8 has been with us since 2007. It's due to be replaced by a new R8 in a year or two, but for the time being, why not squeeze a little more out of the old one? The futuristic-looking Lamborghaudi has just been facelifted and the chassis and underfloor aerodynamics have been improved in many important and I'm sure very interesting ways.
While all the existing models weigh the same as before, the V8 R8 gains 15 horsepower and the V10 gains... nothing? That's unusual. Well, actually the V10 gains a new variant, called the "V10 Plus". That one does have more power, at 550bhp instead of the 525bhp of the "basic" V10, along with another 8lb/ft of torque, at 398lb/ft. To further set it apart from the regular V10 R8, optional extras like partially lining the engine bay in carbon fibre and adding LED "illumination" are standard, which would be a nice gesture if the Plus didn't cost more anyway...
Audi R8 V8
The Plus essentially has the engine from the R8 GT limited edition then, and now all R8s have the GT's mortar cannon exhausts, as well as five NACA ducts and two front diffusers underneath to improve airflow and boost aerodynamics without resorting to a vulgar rear wing. Well, you've got to save something for the 2014 R8 GT Plus Spyder LM Edition super-special limited edition later on, otherwise it would be harder to swindle another £20,000 or so out of the magpie-men that buy lazy SEs like that one I just made up.
Other than those changes, fancy new LED lights fore and aft, new 7-speed S-Tronic gearbox and a few chassis tweaks, it's still basically the R8 you know and have an opinion on. If you want more of a change, try again in a year or two. There'll be an eTron Concept-inspired neo-R8 waiting for you then.
As you most likely know, MG-Rover is still alive, except that Rover is now spelt Roewe (only still existing in China), and MG is currently only making a fastback-shaped Focus rival with a cheap feel and only one engine, called MG6. They plan to expand that range with an "MG3" hatchback to take on Vauxhall Corsa-sized cars, previewed by the MG-Zero Concept, and now this. This is widely being touted as a "new MGB", which will become available as both a coupé and a roadster. There's just one problem... The ride height. You'll no doubt remember what an MGB Roadster looks like - low, clean and very British - and you'll no doubt remember that it wasn't a crossover SUV designed to take on the Nissan Juke high hatch. Oh China, have you got any idea what you're doing? Owners of real MGBs would choke on their pipes if you showed them something akin to the overstyled, high-riding MG Icon Concept above as a production model called MGB. It would be a worse comeback than BMW's Mini impostor by quite some margin, and completely soil the adored iconic badge.
Of course, the brutal reality is that this idea - even without any historical tie-in - would probably sell better than a small roadster that isn't a Mazda MX-5, because more and more people want something with more ground clearance and a waistline higher than the one on their grandfather. I'm not sure why that is - in these austere times, you're buying a heavier, less aerodynamic and therefore less efficient and economical version of a highly popular type of car. Why a Nissan Juke instead of a Ford Fiesta, for example? Why a Range Rovér Èvoque N°5 instead of something like a Mercedes-Benz CLS? Is it for a "commanding driving position"? Do you still have the misconception that a chunkier car is safer? Because that's definitely not true. Not only would you fold a pedestrian in half, but more metal just means there's more to bend and crush. Is an A3 sheet of paper harder to fold and rip than a sheet of A4? No. Point made. They just look tougher. Is that what it is? To look tougher? Are you seriously trading fuel economy and fun handling for not much extra space and an image? You shallow little fool.
With that said, not everything has to be low and sporty. Of course. That would be silly. What use would a low-slung Land Rover Defender be? But an MGB revival must be low and sporty, because it's a sports car. How hard is that? I sincerely hope they don't call it an MGB or make any more references to the iconic classic when releasing their high hatch to tackle the Juke. I also hope it doesn't make it to the UK and the convertible is a complete flop.
Speaking of Blighty, it is of course the MGB's 50th birthday this year, which is cause for much celebratory pipe smoking and engine fixing. The definitive small British sports car hasn't been forgotten, and British sports car "restomod" specialists Frontline Developments have made an Eagle-Speedster-style neoclassical version of the hardtop GT, that teams modern mechanicals with old-school styling to make the best of both worlds: a classic car that doesn't break down, and a modern sports car with genuinely classy looks.
Here it is, the LE50, and the thing you'll notice is that it looks exactly the same as an MGB GT. That's because it uses a "Heritage shell", effectively an exact copy of the original body shell authorised by the British Motor Heritage, who own the rights to classic MG, and made with period-correct tools. To keep it classic, for each of the 50 LE50s sold, Frontline Developments buy a scrapped MGB, transfer the registration and VIN over, let the MG Car Club take any parts from the scrap car that they want, and then crush it to avoid cloning scams. Because the LE50 uses a certain percentage of period-correct parts (made new to the old spec, including the live rear axle), it's classified as being that scrapped B GT "repaired", despite technically being a new creation. Brilliant!
What's more brilliant is that the drivetrain and suspension don't have to party like it's 1965, so it uses the engine and gearbox from - perhaps ironically - a brand new Mazda MX-5 (bought from Mazda, not stripped from a production car), meaning the death-prone 95bhp 1.8-litre B-Series engine is replaced with a 215bhp 2.0-litre engine upgraded with 45mm throttle bodies, a new exhaust cam, a custom Omex engine management system and a carefully tuned exhaust to make it sound like a '60s racing car. Said engine is connected to a light aluminium 6-speed manual gearbox with close ratios, also from an NC2-generation MX-5. So that's the reliability sorted, what about rust? Well it's rust-proofed, but Frontline Developments have also seam-welded the body shell for extra strength and to sort out common trouble areas in MGB shells. To top it all off, it has the bracing panels from the V8-powered MG RV8, so it's far stiffer and somewhat safer than an original MGB.
Using an engine/gearbox combo made of aluminium instead of cast iron means the kerbweight drops by over 100kg to a mere 941kg, giving it a power-to-weight ratio of 235bhp/tonne, which is level with a supercharged Lotus Elise. What's more, that 215bhp is sent through a Limited-Slip Differential (LSD), so it's much more adept at being a drift machine than before (TopGear.com even compared it favourably to the built-to-drift Toyota GT 86 in this respect). In fact, all signs point to this being an absolute hoot to drive, which is after all the point of a car like this.
Why is it worth £50,000? Exclusivity - there shall only be 50 - as well as care and attention; paint is done over 7 weeks by a specialist, and each part is CAD-drawn and analysed to make sure it's perfect. You can also get heated seats and windscreen if you ask nicely, and it has air conditioning and a modern sound system. So what we have here is a faithful recreation of the original, but which irons out all the issues of the old one and makes it as fast as a modern sports car to boot, while being just as sweet in corners as the old car (more so, even, as it's packing modern multi-link suspension with adjustable dampers). Fantastic.
So what'll it be? A neoclassical sports car, or an ugly and inaccurate impersonation made into a high-hatch? It's enough to make wish someone did the same thing as the LE50 to original Minis (only cheaper)...
To cut back my history of TVR, I decided to leave out their forays into motorsport, a world to which their powerful-but-light cars are surely well-suited. So here's the rest of it. The first time Trevor Wilkinson made a racing car was actually the 1950s JOMAR, brought about by American racing driver Raymond Saidel, who wanted a better-handling car than his Oldsmobile-powered Allard and had failed thus far to make one himself (Jomar Mk.1 had solid axles and cable brakes...). The chassis, built by Wilkinson, featured an 1100cc Coventry Climax engine coupled to an MG TC's gear box, and was fitted with Saidel's open-cockpit "sport spider" body in America to become Jomar Mk.2. It raced poorly in 1956, but was properly ready in '57, with one of the two cars finishing 4th at Lime Rock. Later on, the earlier of the two chassis was destroyed in a crash by Ray Heppenstahl. Jomar Mk.3 raced in England with revised suspension and less weight, and this partnership lead to the first TVR-Jomar Coupé. To cut a long story short, the bubble-roofed original had no radio, heater or ventilation, and the roof was too short, so they made a fastback version and that evolved into the Grantura, which was first produced, in Blackpool, in 1958. For more on Jomar, whose story ends at this point due to production issues, go here and here.
Their next big motorsports effort didn't come along until 1989, when Peter Wheeler's TVR devised the TVR Tuscan Challenge one-make series, using a bespoke car that was never produced as a road car for financial reasons. The series ran from 1989 to 2004 when a lack of factory support forced it to integrate with another independent TVR series, and the cars featured a bespoke engine, after the Rover V8 reached its limit. Called the 'AJP8' and colloquially known as the "Speed-8" engine, this was a 450bhp beast, with 380lb/ft of torque shifting the 850kg rollcaged open-top Challenge cars exceedingly rapidly; 0-100mph took just 6.9 seconds! That puts it in range of the brand new McLaren MP4-12C, although to be fair the Tuscan obviously used racing tyres. TVR dealers were encouraged to take part, and even Peter Wheeler had a go! As well as him, Jimmy McRae was a series regular, and guest drivers included his son Colin McRae [RIP], Tiff Needell, sportscar legend Andy Wallace and BTCC legends Anthony Reid, John Cleland and Tim Harvey. Nigel Mansell was even set to take part, but he was hospitalised by a serious BTCC crash before he could. Many current sportscar racers developed their skills in this series, which used to have a race through Birmingham, as this video - which is worth sticking with until the end - shows:
These fearsome machines were not the ultimate symbol of TVR's madness, however. No, that'd be the Speed 12, and if you're aware of the Speed-6 and Speed-8 engines, then you already have a clue as to why that is. The original Speed 12 was revealed at the 1996 Birmingham Motor Show as Project 7/12, and featured the kind of performance figures that humble a McLaren F1 (which was still all the rage back then, of course, much as the Bugatti Veyron was two or three years ago). The engine was essentially two 3.8-litre Speed-6 units joined together with a steel block, which was then developed further by John Ravenscroft to become a 7.7-litre V12, sitting in an 1100kg car. They put the engine on a dyno designed to withstand 1000 horsepower... and the dyno blew up. They then measured each bank of cylinders separately to find that they produced 480bhp - or the power of a Ferrari F40 - each. This would theoretically combine to make 960bhp, although in the end it was "officially" quoted as having 800bhp. Eight. Hundred. Horsepower. In 1996. This gave it a power-to-weight ratio of 727bhp/tonne, which is over 2.5 times the ratio in a Ferrari F355! It's also a good 150bhp/tonne more than the McLaren, so surely it's faster than the 240mph legend? Peter Wheeler never explicitly denied it...
The aim of this car was to make a rival to the McLaren, as well as compete in GT1 racing. Considering the budget differences, that wasn't going to be easy to pull off, and sure enough only four engines were made, with just one Speed 12 reaching the road with an evolved, smoother body and the Cerbera moniker shoehorned into the name. Peter Wheeler said of this beast "I knew within 300 yards this was a silly idea. Over 900 horsepower in a car weighing just over a ton is plainly ridiculous on the road." Gee, what was your first clue? As for the racing car - restricted to 675bhp - it made a few outings in GT1 racing, but before long it was made obsolete by rule changes and the arrival of cars like the Porsche 911 GT1 and Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR to the series, so it never made it to Le Mans. The Cerbera Speed 12 it grew into by 2000 entered in GT2, winning several races but breaking down in several others.
With that, TVR decided not to make a road car. There's no point building a killing machine, no matter how awesome it is, and after Wheeler had declared it too ridiculous for the road, deposits were returned and the remaining prototypes were broken up to free up parts for the racers. However, one road car did make it, sold to a TVR enthusiast personally approved by Wheeler and sporting 880 bhp with a "mild" cam profile and ECU map. Effectively a finished-off prototype, the car has since sprouted a front splitter and gigantic rear wing, to try and peg down that rear end. Supposedly, at an even-lighter 975kg, it has a power-to-weight ratio of 903bhp/tonne, which leaves behind just about everything... assuming you can get the power down. If you can, you'll hit 60 in about 3.5 seconds and on past 240mph, although not that far past, due to the big wing. Unlike all the other TVRs, this used an aluminium honeycomb tub with a steel tubular rollcage and subframes, over which sits a carbon fibre body. While some go faster and more have similar power this remains the maddest, most swivel-eyed supercar ever made. Not how the McLaren F1's remembered, but more a front-engined Koenigsegg of sorts, only more... unhinged. It was restored in 2007 to the tune of £45,000 with a titanium rear end and sold on via Pistonheads. Maybe the old tail broke off after a lapse in concentration and talent. For more, go to these places: Pistonheads.com/tvr/speed12, Pistonheads.com/tvr/cerbera/gt2, http://speed12.info/, "The Silly Idea", evo.co.uk, Supercars.net. Or Wikipedia.
So how do you follow that? Well, you can't, really, but Peter Wheeler was determined to go racing at Le Mans, so he set about making a "super Tuscan" using experience from the Challenge cars and a similar structure to the Speed-12, as opposed to the normal fibreglass-body-on-tubular-backbone-frame. The 1100kg 'Tuscan R' that resulted was sold on the road three years later in 2004, as the T400R and T440R, whose numbers referred to horsepower rather than displacement, although at 4.0 litres for the 400 and 4.2 for the 440, they'd be pretty similar numbers either way. There was going to be a supercharged 'Typhon' atop the range, with a staggering 585bhp from a supercharged 4.2-litre engine and a racing sequential gearbox with adjustable ratios, but the amount of heat generated from both entities made it unsafe as a road car, so it was canned, leaving the T4x0 for customers to buy in very small numbers for around £75,000, although with a supposed top speed of 215mph, the naturally-aspirated versions were still the fastest TVR road cars ever built more than once. For a little more on the road cars, go here.
This won't end well...
The racing version was more of a success however, starting in the British GT Championship in 2001 by two cars winning three races in its début season (the first at Castle Combe), and becoming something of a fan favourite thanks to its distinctive looks and that glorious exhaust note from the 4.0-litre slant-six present in all Cerbera-onwards TVRs. The car that got two of those wins, run by Rollcentre Racing, won four more races in 2002, nearly winning the championship, while a very bright-orange third car entered with terrible luck. Rollcentre also scored second in class at the first non-British race for the T400R, the 2002 Suzuka 1000km. This picture was 'shopped to prank the driver, by the way. He didn't really jump that high.
In 2003, the black-on-yellow DeWalt-sponsored Peninsula team arrived with two cars, aiming squarely at Le Mans. To impress the ACO, who run the famous race, they decided to go to the Sebring 12 Hours, which is a highly-punishing warm-up race on the very bumpy and hot Sebring Raceway in America. In a grid full of world-class teams, they wanted to finish, and finish well, in their first major endurance race. Full of typical British optimism, then! As onlookers cast a cynical eye on the underdogs, said cynical eyes would be opened wide, as they saw a T400R finish 6th in class, with no problems other than a faulty battery right near the end of the race. Oh, and the fixed windows were baking the drivers. That can't have been pleasant. Nevertheless, they had finished, and well. It was probably the first time ever that a TVR had gone 12 straight hours without breaking down.
With three TVRs finishing 1st, 2nd and 3rd at Silverstone back in the BGTC, the ACO were suitably impressed, and TVR finally reached Le Mans. Unfortunately, this wasn't going to be the same shining début they had at Sebring - of the two DeWalt cars, one was taken out by another car and the other made it so close to the end, before limping back to the pits and being retired with a technical failure. Still, with Bentley winning outright, there was at least some British success that year, even if the Bentley Speed 8 [no relation] is essentially a dressed-up Audi R8. Overall in the BGTC that year, TVRs scored three wins. The following two years only saw one win in the BGTC at the 2004 Oulton Park race, but their dreams of finishing Le Mans came true in '04, as two purple widebody cars came 8th and 9th in a class of 16, beating the fastest LMP2 car to boot, while their last attempt in '05 saw another 8th-in-class. Their last year of competition also saw TVR win the prestigious 1000km of Spa, earning a 1-2 finish for the British marque. For more on the T400R GT cars, go here.
Alas, this is where TVR's racing story ends, as troubles with noise restrictions caused them to frustratedly withdraw from the British GT Championship, and they weren't invited to Le Mans in 2006. Of course, '06 was the year that TVR as a whole started to fall apart, but at least they had achieved Peter Wheeler's dream of racing competitively at Le Mans, and picked up a couple of historic wins in GT racing. All in all, their racing history is one to be proud of, even if they never dominated the world. Besides, there's something very British about being the plucky underdog, and how could you not be proud of creating the Cerbera Speed 12?
Over time, even the wildest car companies decided it was time to calm down and make money. Porsche now make an SUV and a 4-door executive car alongside their sports cars, Ferrari have made a four-seat shooting brake designed using customer requests rather than tradition, Lamborghini no longer has a two-wheel-drive model, and so on. Except that the wildest car company didn't calm down, because to this day, TVR has never made a boring, sensible car. Not even a particularly tame sports car. They've all been nut cases, the equivalent of a tattooed bald guy who has unspeakable piercings and rides around on a thumping great Harley-Davidson causing trouble. It's that bad-lad quality that drew people to them, in the same way that while some enjoy singing along near the back at a live music event, others get right near the front, get piss-drunk and start beating the shit out of eachother.
Alas, last week saw the end of the comatose British sports car company, as Russian billionaire and all-round bad guy Nikolay Smolensky has officially announced that TVR is, once and for all, gone. Not a very rock 'n' roll way to go, its poor financial record and somewhat niche audience (only so many people enjoy the fact that they might die tomorrow morning) meant that it's been hanging on for dear life for the last six years, and was finally allowed to let go and start spitting flames out sideways in heaven. As an obituary, here's a history of the last pure British sports car company.
Trevor Wilkinson - or should I spell that TreVoR Wilkinson, founded TVR in 1947, originally as Trevcar Motors. Initially, Trevcar repaired and sold existing cars, as well as repairing other stuff like fairground rides and military trucks, but really he wanted to design and build his own little sports car. So, in 1949, he put the mechanicals from a Morris 8 and a Ford 100E engine (like you'd find in an Anglia or Prefect) into a tubular chassis and wrapped it in an alloy body he designed himself, to make the two-seater TVR No.1. Little else is known about this car, as it was crashed and then cut up to make another car. However, there is a drawing of it, which is atop this page. Before No.1 was cannibalised to make No.3, Trevor made TVR No.2 in the same year, which refined various elements such as adding a larger radiator to cool the engine and added such decadent luxuries hub caps and the rev counter from a Supermarine Spitfire. This car still exists, and is thus the oldest-surviving TVR. Now living in a museum, it was raced in Formula 1172 races (that's not to say that there were thousands of racing formulas back then - the number refers to engine size) at a few circuits in Great Britain, and now lives in the hands of a devoted collector, who restored it fifteen years ago.
The first production car from TVR - renamed after they made these first three cars under "TVR Engineering" and then shortened to just the acronym in 1953 - was the fibreglass-bodied Grantura. Using a 'backbone' tubular chassis and fully independent suspension at both ends, this platform was also sold in the US as a JOMAR, brought about by American racing driver Raymond Saidel, who wanted a better-handling car than his Oldsmobile-powered Allard and had failed thus far to make one himself (Jomar Mk.1 had solid axles and cable brakes...). The chassis, built by Wilkinson, featured an 1100cc Coventry Climax engine coupled to an MG TC's gear box, and was fitted with Saidel's open-cockpit "sport spider" body in America to become Jomar Mk.2. It raced poorly in 1956, but was properly ready in '57, with one of the two cars finishing 4th at Lime Rock. Later on, the earlier of the two chassis was destroyed in a crash by Ray Heppenstahl. Jomar Mk.3 raced in England with revised suspension and less weight, and this partnership lead to the first TVR-Jomar Coupé. To cut a long story short, the bubble-roofed original had no radio, heater or ventilation, and the roof was too short, so they made a fastback version and that evolved into the Grantura, which was first produced, in Blackpool, in 1958. For more on Jomar, whose story ends at this point due to production issues, go here and here.
What the Grantura lacked in practicality (no bootlid means you have to access the spare wheel and luggage from inside the car), it had in lightweight engineering and parts from other cars. The brakes were from Austin-Healey, the suspension was from a VW beetle (and later on from Triumph), and the rear axle was from BMC, the people who brought you the Mini. And that's leaving out the choice of engines available to customers. You could originally have either the 1100cc unit from the Jomar or a Ford 1172cc inline-4, probably much like the one he first used in No.2. To give you an idea of the build quality, it was also available as a kit car...
They built a hundred Granturas before updating it to the Series 2 in 1960, by standardising rack-and-pinion steering and front brake discs, refining the bodywork and changing the engine line-up a bit. A 1.6-litre B-Series engine from the MGA became the standard choice, with later Mk.2As also offering a 1.4 Ford engine. The 1.6 car could hit 60mph in 12 seconds and had a top speed of nearly 100mph. Two years later they updated it again with a longer and stiffer chassis. The Series 3 also gained coil-sprung independent suspension and MG engines of either 1.6 or 1.8 litres. The 1964 1800S had an updated body featuring the tail lights from a Ford Cortina which sat on a flatter rear fascia, making a kamm tail akin to a Shelby Daytona or Honda S600 in shape. This third iteration of the Grantura would form the base for all their cars for the next decade, including the Vixen, a direct evolution featuring a Ford Kent engine also found in the Cortina and Capri, and the V8-powered Griffith. The first Griffith appeared in 1964 when Jack Griffith looked at the AC/Shelby Cobra and decided he could do that, so de cut back and hammered down (literally) the front of the chassis until the 4.7-litre Ford V8 would fit inside, modifying nothing else except for adding wider tyres. Yikes! This is a 200-horsepower car - or 270bhp with a slightly meatier tune - that weighs about 860kg and has basic brakes and a very short wheelbase (the whole car's about 3.5m long). That makes for a tricky little blighter of a car, on road or track.
The Griffith and Tuscan (1967-71, Ford V8 or V6) kept essentially the same look as the Grantura, with the style only changing in 1972 when a new "M Series" came along, sporting a new chassis designed by Mike Bigland that was longer than before, perhaps to accommodate longer engines such as the Triumph straight-six used in the 2500M (although having the engine behind the front wheels also meant you could keep a spare under the long bonnet). This new "era" of cars was known as the "M Series" cars, as the company was bought by Martin Lilley and his dad in 1965 and these were their cars.
The new ownership didn't see a change in methods. For you money you got a tubular 'backbone' chassis, fibreglass body and a choice of engines. The three versions available were the 1600M, with a 1.6 Ford Kent inline-4, 2500M with a 2.5 Triumph inline-6 and a 3000M with a 3.0 Ford Essex V6. The 106bhp, 133lb/ft 2500M was mainly aimed at the US market, where they enjoyed continued popularity after Jomar and needed an engine to meet strict US emissions laws. The Triumph TR6's lump did, so they used that, along with the TR6's gearbox and front suspension uprights. However, in the UK where the 138bhp and 174lb/ft 3000M existed, the 2500 version only lasted a year. The 86bhp, 92lb/ft 1600 was originally only going to last a year as well, but the 1973 oil crisis necessitated its return in '74 after a one-year hiatus. Eventually, the M-series branched out in body styles, adding a hatchback bootlid to the 3000M to make the Taimar and a folding fabric roof to make the 3000S convertible. The M-Series TVRs lasted until the end of the decade, and with '70s build quality and a low budget, were probably lively things to own, in more ways than one.
In 1977, development of a new car began with input from two of the key men responsible for the Lotus Elite and Eclat, stylist Oliver Winterbottom and chassis draughtsman Ian Jones. The car would look radically different, while still sticking to TVR's core values and using a now-traditional powder-coated tubular backbone chassis. Two years later, just in time for the '80s, the wedge-shaped and apparently absurdly loud Tasmin appeared, in three body styles - two-seater, four-seater (which only sold about 50 units in the end) and convertible - but now with just one engine: the 2.8-litre Ford Cologne V6.
The Tasmin 280i may look suitably... angular for its time, but it's not the fastest thing in the world, with 2.8 litres only mustering up 160bhp and 162lb/ft in a car that weighed a lot more than the V8 Griffiths of before. Once again, the mechanicals were a hotchpotch of Ford bits - the engine and front brakes were from a Granada, the suspension and steering were from a Cortina and the gearbox was from a Sierra - and being from a small British sports car company, it wasn't going to be a masterful showcase of build quality. As such, it wasn't great, and a £2000-cheaper entry-level version using the 101bhp 2.0-litre four-pot from a Ford Pinto did nothing to improve things, only selling 61 of them (45 of which were convertibles). It was at this point that the company was bought by enigmatic chemicals tycoon and all-round cool guy, Peter Wheeler, who would turn the company around from this point. In 1981, when he took over, he brought about a Series II Tasmin (meaning the S1 only lasted a year) featuring many improvements, but still wanted more power than the anaemic Ford engines were offering. He solved this in '83 by dropping a V8 into it, a 3.5-litre unit from Rover. This would start a relationship with the Rover V8 that would last until the engine's demise early in the 21st century.
The resulting 350i, which dropped the Tasmin name before long, still wasn't exactly a Porsche 911 Turbo or Ferrari 288 GTO. Still, it had 190bhp and 220lb/ft, just as it did in the SD1 Vitesse of the time, which got the first V8 TVR since 1969 from 0-60 in 6.3 seconds and on to 130mph, good figures for the time. Not using a Ford engine also meant they could sell the car in Arab countries, where they weren't keen on Ford sue to their close dealings with Israel. Whether the region subsequently filled up with TVRs or not, I don't know, but you've got to be aware of these things when selling a product, and sell the product they did - The 350i went on to be the best-selling TVR of all time, shifting over 1000 units and being praised by CAR Magazine as "the greatest sports car since the Ferrari 275GTB/4". Now that's what you call a turnaround!
TVR 400SE
The V8 range got increasingly wild, starting off by growing the 390SE a year later in '84, which added 85bhp onto the existing 190 to make something a little fruitier, as well as high-lift cams, Cosworth pistons, as well as a stronger clutch and wider tyres to put that power down. There were even seven 420SEs, which had an even bigger engine. But why stop there? As well as a 400SE, there was a 450SE with 320bhp and a 150mph top speed, and the ultimate evolution, the 420 and 450 "SEAC". the extra two letters stand for Aramid Composite, and signified that rather than being 100% fibreglass, the body was 20% Kevlar. Does that make it bulletproof? Who knows. The engine certainly wasn't. The 450SE, with a 4.5-litre TVR-tuned Rover V8, had 325bhp, 320lb/ft, a 0-60 of 4.5 and a blistering top speed of 175mph. Only 17 were made in 1988/9, although many wedge cars have since been converted to this spec. Because it's the meatiest one. TVR commemorated this highly-popular "Wedge Age" at its end in 1990 with a 25-car run-out special edition called the 350SE, featuring an all-alloy 3.9-litre version of the Rover engine, multi-piece alloy wheels and adjustable Koni shock absorbers. Typically, car #13 wasn't built out of superstition and a #26 made up the numbers instead. Wouldn't want to jinx the 1990s, now would you?
While the wedge was getting all the looks, an "S-Series" car came about in 1986, being produced just 12 months after being shown off at a motor show due to the overwhelming response. This had more traditional styling, started off with the original 280i's Cologne V6 - which gained another 10 horsepower and 100cc as well as longer doors, tweaked suspension and a catalytic converter later on - and became the V8S in 1991. Packing the 400SE's fuel-injected 4.0 Rover V8, this was faster than an Aston Martin Virage, Ferrari Testarossa, Lotus Esprit Turbo SE and a Porsche 911, with 240bhp and 270lb/ft getting the unusually-well-sorted 1032kg car from 0-60 in 4.9 seconds, 0-100 in 12.9 seconds and onwards to 150mph or so. Impressive, and more attractive to my eyes than the now-dated wedges, despite its Ford Escort tail lights. Reviews did and continue to give a good impression of this car, saying it's a real pleasure to drive and has an exhaust note that'll leave a better impression in your ears than Queen's Greatest Hits I. I wonder what they sell for?
TVR S3 (left) and V8S (right)
An interesting aside in the S-Series is the 2.0-litre supercharged V8 developed for Italy's strict displacement-based engine tax of the time. Based on the Rover 3.5 but using a smaller-throw crank to give an extremely short stroke of 40.25mm (compared to the 88.9mm bore), it had 230bhp, 196lb/ft and comparable performance to the "mainstream" 4.0 naturally-aspirated version. Only one is known to still exist. The V8S ceased in 1993, to make way for the new Griffith, which featured very smooth, rounded styling, like a fibreglass pebble with a convertible roof and four wheels. Oh, and the tail lights from a '90s Vauxhall Cavalier.
In the '90s, Wheeler's TVR really stepped up their game. As well as starting a one-make race series with a fierce, bespoke Tuscan racing car, they brought out that speed pebble in 1991. The Griffith 400 had a 4.0 Rover V8, probably either the exact one from the 400SE or closely related to it, which produced 240bhp, or 280bhp if you asked for a 4.3 with big-valve cylinder heads in '92 (which 70% of buyers did). Originally it was effectively the same car as the V8S, but the S-Series chassis was found not to be strong enough for the power they wanted in the Griffith, so it used a development of the Tuscan Challenge race car's tougher powder-coated tubular backbone frame. With fully-independent double-wishbone suspension, a low weight of just 1048kg and that power output, it was a great recipe, and sure enough the original 1990 show car drew in 300 orders. It wasn't a very neat driving machine, though - the huge torque in the light body meant you could quite easily spin up the rear wheels at 80mph in 3rd gear... and that was when it was dry. The quick steering also demanded accuracy and the bonnet started to lift up a little bit at high speed. Speaking of high speed, the 500 could go from 0-60 in 4.1 seconds and on to 167mph. Lairy. In 1993 they made it less jittery.
TVR Chimaera 450
While the Griffith was made in relatively small numbers, a twin sister with a different, more butch body came out at the same time to act as the bigger, slightly softer GT car, and had the most appropriate name of any TVR: Chimaera. Named after the mythical creature that is made up of numerous other animals, the Chimaera had the same set of engines as the Griffith, all Rover V8s. Starting with a 240bhp 4.0-litre one and also offering a 280bhp 4.3, 285bhp 4.5 and culminating in a 340bhp 5.0-litre TVR-developed version of the faithful engine. All had an unforgettable - and significantly loud - exhaust note. Both models lasted right up until 2002, and the rarer, rawer Griffith fetches more money these days.
Although Peter Wheeler had transformed the wedge cars into a success, they weren't technically "his". The Griffith was his first creation, and along with the Chimaera introduced a new generation of petrolheads to the brand by appearing in a little-known PlayStation game called Gran Turismo in 1997. Having used them in every edition to the series, I can assure you that they're just as wild and unruly in the virtual world as well!
Wheeler's third TVR was actually the first one that couldn't be referred to as an automotive chimera, as it only used TVR parts, and crucially engines, as BMW had bought Rover and it was decided that making their own units was safer than if BMW pulled the plug on the long-serving Rover V8, which they eventually did. Called the Cerbera, it was Wheeler's first hardtop and the first 2+2 in the range since the original Tasmin's ill-fated variant, although because the front passenger seat can go further forward than the driver's seat, it's more like a "3+1" layout, as sitting behind the driver requires very short legs. The original 1996 car used a 4.2-litre "Speed Eight" AJP8, a 75° V8 with a flat-plane crank, much akin to contemporary Formula 1 engines. Designed like a racing engine by race engineer Al Melling, the original 4.2 produced 360bhp and 320lb/ft, in a car weighing roughly 1130kg, which ensured it was fast. 0-60 was dispatched in 4.2 seconds and the Cerbera sped on to a blistering 185mph. That's fast enough, right? Of course not. This is TVR! A 4.5-litre version was developed with 420bhp and 380lb/ft of torque, cutting the 0-60 by 0.3 seconds and adding 10mph onto the top speed.
As usual, TVR didn't have much of a budget to play with, so to stretch out the range further, they made a "Speed Six" to sit under the Speed Eight Cerberas. After their previous "entry level" version - the Pinto-powered Tasmin 200 - completely bombed, they weren't going to chicken out with this one, so despite being an entry level engine, it only made 10bhp less than the 4.2 V8, and actually made a smidgen more torque! Of course, being a straight-six, the real differences were in the nature of the delivery. 0-60 took 4.4 seconds and it hit 180mph. The Speed Six engine, which is actually mounted at an angle, making it a "Slant-Six", would last through to TVR's end, and at 4.0 litres is one of the biggest six-cylinder engines ever put in a car. Featuring four valves per cylinder as opposed to the V8's two, its key design features bore resemblance to those of the Suzuki GSX-R 750 sport bike's engine, which Melling also designed, and the head actually flowed better than that of the Cosworth DFV engine that had powered so many winning F1 cars by that time that it had become the most successful racing engine ever. The Speed Six was cheaper to build and maintain than the Speed Eight, so when TVR fell into more serious financial difficulties, the V8 TVR died when Peter Wheeler's first three cars - Griffith, Chimaera, Cerbera - ran their course in 2003.
The '00s heralded yet another new era for TVR, then, and it was entirely powered by the Speed Six engine. Despite poor financing, Wheeler wanted TVR to become Britain's Ferrari, so a new model line was introduced at the turn of the century, called the Tuscan Speed Six. The first non-V8 TVR for decades was meant as a GT car, with a targa roof and a big boot complemented by a 3.6-litre engine producing 350bhp and 290lb/ft. Despite meaning to be an everyday GT car, perhaps like a Porsche, it actually had no airbags, no ABS and no Traction Control (all of which cost money, you see), so the typically hyper-sensitive throttle, meaty torque and light weight meant that driving in the rain was... lively. A proper TVR then, rough and ready and not for the faint of heart. Or the poor - together with the Cerbera, the Tuscan went upmarket in price, which would be fine if the more complex Tuscan was as reliable and well-built as a car costing the same as a Porsche...
TVR Tuscan II (2005-06)
The Tuscan quickly got a 4.0-litre version of the same engine, whose power figure rose from 350 to 400bhp over time to make the Tuscan S. Did it ever outsell Ferrari and Porsche? Nope, although it was used in the movie Swordfish. In 2005, it was updated to the Tuscan II, which featured updated bodywork, a full convertible version and a more refined drive to make it more usable. Did it gain any driver aids or airbags? TVR says that such things don't actually make their cars safer, so no it didn't. It also didn't get any more power, still offering a 380bhp 4.0 or a 400bhp 4.0 'S', although a 440bhp 4.2 was added right at the end of its life. A four-seat version entered Le Mans and GT racing under the name "Typhon", and was set to hit the road as the T400R/T440R, but didn't for financial reasons. One car that did, however, was the Tamora, a two-seat roadster that was slightly under 4 metres long, weighed 1060kg and punching 350bhp and 290lb/ft from a 3.6-litre engine. Twitchy, unreliable, but bloody fast, it was roughly on par with the Cerbera Speed-6 in a straight line.
Wheeler's last car would be the T350. Based on the Tamora and using the same engine, the fixed-head fastback was heavier, but more practical and, as Richard Hammond explains, better:
As well as a T350C coupé, the non-structural fibreglass body meant that a "Targa" version, called T350T could be built without losing any structural rigidity whatsoever, while providing lift-out panels over the two occupants' heads. All the better to hear that straight-six with! In July 2004, Nikolay Smolensky bought TVR off Peter Wheeler, who by then was too old to be running a debt-riddled car company like TVR. The 24-year-old Russian spent around £15m in order to inherit all the financial problems, and his reign subsequently didn't last long. In the two years that TVR remained a fully-functioning company, they pulled out of the Tuscan Challenge racing series, updated the Tuscan road car to Spec II, but could only squeeze out one new car. It was a wild one, though, a raw, deranged thing with slits in the wheel arches, exhausts that pointed out sideways and a perspex rear spoiler. Oh, and it was named after a Greek battleaxe. If you wanted to reassure people that TVR wasn't going to die quietly, you couldn't do much better than building the Sagaris.
The overall shape echoes the T350 underneath, but there's so much "axe murderer" laced over the top of it that you don't sit there and moan that it's basically the same car. You just stand back and wait for it to go apeshit. There are actually two bonnets on this car, one with adjustable flaps, presumably to act as huge vents for that 4.0 slant-six, and then a bigger one to actually get at the engine when it breaks down or needs something replacing. No other car I can think of has a Targa-top engine cover. The roof itself was fixed, and includes a bubble on the driver's side ready for when Jeremy Clarkson (or other tall people) gets behind the wheel to experience the terror.
With a fibreglass body, tubular backbone frame and an exceedingly low kerb weight, it was pure TVR, using all the philosophies of the cars right near the top of this page from all those years ago. 380bhp and 349lb/ft met 1078kg to get to 60mph 3.7 seconds, before heading on to 185mph flat-out, at which point the targa-top bonnet will be lifting up out of position, as if the 4.0 Speed Six engine is trying to escape its inevitable death. Despite gleefully ignoring the European guidelines suggesting that maybe your car should have ABS, the brakes were highly effective, getting the car from 60-0mph in 2.9 seconds, assuming you didn't lock them up and go straight on into that deer in the road, in which case you're probably reading this in hospital with your only remaining eye and arm. Bad luck, mate. TVR deciding that airbags promote overconfidence and shouldn't be included hasn't worked out well for you, has it? Get well soon. Now you know why they're the Blackpool Bruisers.
Of course, if you do get well soon, you'll have done better than the lovable maniac of the car industry, as TVR got into serious trouble under Smolensky's reign. In 2006, after production had become intermittent at best, it was just plain halted, and the famous Blackpool factory was closed down. Smolensky tried what he could to restart production, devising new models and trying to reassure everyone that TVR was not dead yet. He moved to Austria and built three prototypes with the aim of resurrecting TVR, each of which had varying credibility as ideas; one was a Tuscan II with a 400bhp General Motors LS3 (that's a Corvette V8), which would've worked, another was a Cerbera with a BMW V8 Twin-Turbo diesel, which would've been awesome but probably not have sold that well, not least because it would've been very front-heavy, and the last was a T350 with a 100kW (134bhp) electric motor. Smolensky is quoted as saying "We built three cars. They all worked well, but the costs were high. We would have to sell them at between £100,000 and £200,000, which was too high to make sense." The unusual choice of a V8 diesel TT was changed to a more sensible straight-six from the BMW 335d, and the plan became to recondition Tuscans, Cerberas and Sagarises and add a GM LS3 V8 or the BMW diesel six, but it never got off the ground.
That idea isn't a bad one, and harks back to Trevcar's original business of repairing and selling existing cars, only now it's their own. But TVR wouldn't be TVR if it wasn't highly ambitious, so they were also planning a new model. Combining a Tuscan chassis with an LS3 and a new body, codename "MD-1" was planned to be unveiled at Geneva this year as a comeback for the company, with the reconditioning happening in the meantime, but having closed down the Blackpool plant they had nowhere to build the car or otherwise operate out of. Smolensky got close to sealing a deal with Caterham wherein the Caterham-based firm provided manufacturing support to TVR, but in the end he had his doubts over whether the operation would actually make any money. This excuse is also why the MD-1 is purely two-dimensional four months after the Geneva Motor Show, and shall now remain a what-if. In the end, there was no profitable way back for the Blackpool Bruisers, and despite showing off a Corvette-powered Sagaris with US-friendly straight exhausts in 2008, TVR went into administration, and last week a statement revealed that this is really it. TVR is dead. Smolensky still owns the name and so on, and won't sell it unless money can be made out of the proposed business plan. And so, the company that went from refurbishing machines to building tiny and overpowered sports cars, before growing into a hardcore provider of thunderous-but-rough-edged roadsters and coupés while always sticking to their core values, is now only likely to make portable wind turbines in the near future...
The question is, why did it all go to pot so quickly after Wheeler sold it? Was it about to do so anyway and Wheeler was just smart enough to bail out, or did the Russian business boy mess it up, talking a good game and not delivering or taking any much-needed risks? If it's the latter, then Smolensky, you're an arsehole. Sorry to be frank about it, but I've said it now, and it's true. You did a bad thing. I hope your silly windmills keep falling apart and smell like a canoe factory. Now we have nothing but memories, Gran Turismo and classified ads by which to experience the unique blend of agility and brute force. Sure, this blend doesn't include a lot of build quality or refinement, but you're supposed to call that 'character'. And TVRs were full of it. Goodbye, TVR. It's a shame your Russian stepfather was full of something else...
This car lives in Ipswich, in Suffolk. Ipswich likes the colour blue, as it adorns their football team's kit and has done for generations. This, however, is a slightly excessive application of blue hue, as you'll see in pictures of the engine and interior. But that's not the strangest thing about this car. You may well have recognised the rear end to be that of an E60-generation BMW 5-Series, but doesn't the wheelbase look a little... short? And where's the Hoffmeister kink that adorns the side windows of all BMWs?
OK, so this isn't actually a BMW 5-Series M-Sport, despite the rear bodywork. Let's look at the front and see what it is:
Nope, it's not an Audi A4. Guess again.
See? It's a previous-generation Audi A4. Told you it wasn't a BMW... except that it isn't an Audi either. Otherwise the proud four rings wouldn't have been covered in an ugly piece of plastic and the lower grilles wouldn't be blue, they'd be black. And they'd be grilles. We're getting warmer though, for this is an all-wheel-drive car. I'll give you a clue - it's not just ITFC that are associated with the colour blue...
Can you tell what it is yet?
OK, enough is enough. This is a 1993 Subaru Impreza WRX, featuring turbo power, a performance exhaust, uprated brakes, "audio"... and only one door handle. That seems a little odd, even when you step back and look at the whole thing to see three very different cars in one place. Does only the driver's door open? Did nobody else want to be seen in it besides the slightly loopy driver? Or did they just realise what the interior looks like and run a mile?
Hmm... needs more blue.
The dull plastic dashboard is unmolested, but personally I just hate that steering wheel. Considering the fact that the bodywork is surprisingly well-finished considering what must've been involved, that wheel looks like it cost a fiver or came off a Playstation wheel set from a brand you've never heard of. It also has blue highlights, which is true of the pedals, golf-ball gear stick and floor mats as well. The pillar-mounted gauge looks very Japanese-tuner, unlike the outside.
Try focussing on the yellow parts instead and it's not so hideous...
Under the bonnet, the 2.0-litre flat-four turbo is effectively standard-fit, save for new oil and blue hoses (ohh, the blue hoses...). Impreza rally cars featured a yellow-on-blue livery, and the engine bay's colour scheme follows suit, whether you like it or not. Amusingly, in the "power" section of the ad, the seller put "YES". Thus, we can safely assume that the Subeemeraudi actually moves.
So what must you pay for this bemusing blue BeeEmAudiRu? Currently, with six days to go, the bid stands at £4000. For that you get what other sellers would refer to as a "genuine head-turner", which has apparently come to the country from overseas, had nine previous owners and done over 110,000 miles. You're allowed to go and view the "lovely, lovely car" yourself in Ipswich, just in case you think this is some horrible Photoshop prank. You can see the advert here, or if you're reading this a week or more after it was posted, see a picture of what you've missed out on here, which includes an ad for a free eye test from Specsavers, perhaps the most appropriate bit of online advertising ever!
Just a quick note - the seller says that this car is "collocation only", so make sure that the buying process is all arranged in the right order. Clearly it's important to him/her that it is!
Just when you thought four and a bit videos of increasingly extravagant stunt driving was enough, his right honourable hoonigan Sir Kenneth Blocketh XLIII hath returned from the wildernesses of various WRC stages - one of which he actually scored points at - to tear up San Francisco in a totally non-gay way, although some rubber did get burnt. Well, quite a lot actually. But after that, he started shredding tyres on camera(s) and here we have it, another showcase from one of the few men to whom sustained oversteer in a 650bhp Fiesta is both average and pedestrian. Drifts, jumps, drift-jumps, narrowly avoiding things, donuts, it's all present and correct. Oh, and there's some advertising in the last minute or so of it. And a barge.
Whatever opinion you have on Ken Block these days, it's a pretty good watch, although there are a few too many repeats of the same stunt for my liking when air time occurs.
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