MOTORING
Surrey’s Premier Lifestyle Magazine

A very British antidote

TVR is back and firing on all cylinders and in doing so provides a welcome option to many of today’s modern sports cars. Euan Johns looks at the long awaited reappearance of this much loved British sports car marque that echoes the past.
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It’s compact, but the interior arrangement offers comfort and practicality suitable for both everyday use and long-distance driving. It remains a strictly two-seater sports car, but offers ample head room and space, as well as good luggage capacity. The aim has been to produce a grand tourer that’s useable with some guts rather than an out and out sports car.

The interior is undoubtedly driver-orientated, with a bespoke instrument cluster so all the main controls are within easy reach. A conscious effort has been made to jettison the slightly eccentric interior ergonomics. Welcomingly, the car’s specially designed infotainment system is centrally placed and interior surfaces are beautifully trimmed in leather, remaining uncluttered by only featuring controls that enhance TVR’s mantra: the ‘Spirit of Driving’.

TVR will produce 500 Griffith Launch Edition models with production starting in late 2018. The Launch Edition has been offered in a broad choice of colours, including specific, as well as custom options. It will be fitted with bespoke 19 inch front and 20 inch rear wheels.

To grab a piece of motoring history, prices start from £90,000, but hurry as demand has been unsurprisingly high. The company has ambitions to race at Le Mans, something that helped it win over the Gordon Murray Design team, so this chapter in the TVR story has exciting times ahead.
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I used to have a work colleague that spent all his hard earned cash on a second hand TVR Chimaera. He was rightly very proud of the car and being in it was like sitting in a rocket. Its livery was British Racing Green (what else) and when we left work in Wimbledon and joined the A3, rapidly increasing speed (this was pre 50mph speed limit days), I’m pretty sure most people in Guildford could hear us coming. So, with the onslaught from electric, and the imminent spectre of driverless cars, this British, manually geared, petrol-consuming blast from the not too distant past has more than a whiff of nostalgic air.

My memory stems from 20 odd years ago and the TVR company has endured mixed fortunes over that time. Now, thanks to a consortium lead by computer games’ businessman Les Edgar, TVR is back offering a distinct product and highlighting the lack of variation in today’s modern sports car market. The first all-new car to be made in 12 years under the TVR name comes in the form of the spectacular looking TVR Griffith, recently launched at the Goodwood Revival.
The Griffith is the first new TVR to be launched since the company was resurrected in British hands from its previous Russian owner. Staying true to the brand’s rich heritage, the Griffith employs leading edge engineering and top design, as striking as it is aerodynamically efficient. The timeless sports car silhouette is accentuated with deep air intakes, generating high levels of downforce to keep the car close to the road. Embodying TVR’s long-standing ethos of the ‘Spirit of Driving’, the driver is always fully in control, as the new Griffith uses intelligent engineering over electronic driver aids.
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Founded by Trevor Wilkinson in 1947, TVR (TREVOR), is in its 70th year and has had five owners over that time. One, Peter Wheeler, had a strong influence on design, claiming that his pet Dalmatian inadvertently aided the process by taking a bite out of one of his models. This time round nothing has been left to chance and TVR employed Shalford-based Gordon Murray Design. The company’s innovative iStream architecture means the new TVR Griffith weighs only 1,250kg, has exceptional torsional rigidity and a perfect 50:50 weight distribution.

Powering the car is a 5.0-litre Cosworth-enhanced V8, which is coupled to a six-speed manual gearbox, a refreshing variant as quite a few modern sports cars are automatic. The TVR Griffith can achieve a top speed of over 200mph, and rockets from 0-60mph in less than four seconds.
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Websites: www.tvr.co.uk and www.gordonmurraydesign.com

“Sports cars used to be unique, they used to have foibles. Now it’s difficult to tell them apart. TVR did that brilliantly. We are the underdog challenging everybody, and it’s the passion drives us on.”
Les Edgar, new owner of TVR