The wait is almost over. On Friday as the Goodwood Revival gets underway in the UK, the first new TVR sportscar in over a decade will be making its global debut.
The all-new vehicle, which as of yet has no official name, was designed by Gordon Murray, the man behind the seminal McLaren F1, and will be propelled forwards by a special Cosworth-built, turbo-free V8 engine, based on the unit that currently powers the Ford Mustang.
It will be mated to a six-speed manual transmission and send 480hp exclusively to the rear wheels. And because the new car has been built from exotic weight-saving materials, and with latest-generation aerodynamic trickery baked into its exterior design (even the underfloor serves to redirect air and keep the car planted), expect it to offer much, much more in terms of acceleration, top speed and handling than Ford's latest Pony Car.
And that's because the car will tip the scales at just 1200kg. "We have been ambitious and rigorous in establishing performance benchmarks for our new car," said John Chasey at TVR Manufacturing. "Our intentions for power-to-weight, size, practicality and quality standards were set high from the very start. We know that the new TVR must be able to compete at the very highest levels."
Indeed, its power-to-weight ratio of 400bhp per tonne betters that of the Porsche 911 Turbo S, Jaguar F-Type SVR Coupé and any current-generation Aston Martin V8 Vantage.
What's more, the company is adamant that the car will be able to hit 100km/h in under 4 seconds and will easily gain membership to the 200mph club when it goes on sale.
"I know it's our ‘baby' and of course I am incredibly biased, but I've been lucky enough to own many beautiful cars and I can honestly say that for me, this car is everything I wanted it to be -- beauty in a beast -- achingly gorgeous from every angle but at the same time, unmistakably something you don't mess with, menacing, purposeful," said company chairman Les Edgar.
Although TVR was founded in the same year as Ferrari -- 1947 -- and despite considerable success on the track and on the road with customers that wanted a serious, if often idiosyncratic, hand-built British alternative to the relatively boring Porsche 911 or outlandishly expensive V8 Ferrari, its history is littered with bad as well as good business decisions.
Two years after the company was sold to a Russian businessman in 2004, it closed its factory doors and laid off all staff.
And, until Edgar formed a new business and secured all of the necessary rights to relaunch the marque in 2015, it looked as if TVR was set to be consigned to automotive history books, as with many once great British sportscar companies.
But now that the company is re-established, its owners are not taking chances. An initial run of 500 launch edition models is scheduled to go into production in early 2019. And, once each of those examples is completed, the company will slowly and surely gear up into full production, aiming for around 1000 cars a year to begin with and growing to 2000 by 2024 when the company will be offering a range of models in a range of outputs, rather than a single car.
Also Watch: Tech And Auto Show | EP12 | ISUZU MUX Review, Galaxy On Max & More
Comments
0 comment