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TVR Graveyard (56k beware)



  Carrera 4S. Clio 172. M5
Nice pictures Rob !!


At the risk of upsetting a few people.

The reality is you can not trade today on nostalgia.

TVR have been producing poor cars with shiny paint and selling them to enthusiasts, with more money than sense, who are desperately trying to buy British.

The design, build quality, finish, trim, reliability, customer service was appalling.

They hadn't moved on from the days when their competition was companies like Dutton, Marcos and Ginetta who survived solely because the majors of the day like BMC, Sunbeam and Triumph made poor, low performance sports cars with engines direct and untuned from the family cars they produced.

Jaguar, Aston Martin were too expensive for most people to buy, and imports like Porsche and Alfa Romeo were expensive and mostly LHD.

Ford never made a mass volume sports car for the UK nor did Vauxhall so the market was wide open for low volume "high performance" hand built sports cars.

You would need to understand that a car that broke down daily, leaked like a sieve handled like a battleship and lacked comfort and sometimes even a heater, was not uncommon at that time.

When the Japanese first brought the Crown (later Toyota) to the UK in 1966 people were stunned at the level of equipment it had as standard, then Honda introduced the N600 sports car with what was possibly the highest revving reciprocating engine, ever mass produced for a car, and suddenly almost over night the British car makers were on the back foot.

TVR and all the other low volume makers plodded on believing electric windows and air conditioning would never catch on and they didn't need to appeal to their customers by fitting such "luxuries".

They still had that attitude when they went into administration this year, 40 years on.

As Fred said, if you look at what you get for the price of an M3, you have to be seriously mad to buy a TVR on the basis that it goes like hell in a straight line and sounds the business. So does a Fireblade and you would probably stay drier on the bike.

It will take a Russian with a big ego and a history of car ownership based on a Zil limo, to put any money into that company, any serious businessman would run a mile.

If you are serious about spending money on a hand built British sports car, you have a very small choice now.....Morgan, Noble ?, unless you have Aston Martin money.
 
^^^ Marcos seem to have found a way back from the brink (again!) and are now producing a very nice car, although I admit I'm only comparing it to old Marcos', as apart from those (which they used to build in a hangar 2 minutes from my house) I haven't exactly experienced many British sports cars!
 
  Inferno 182 w/ Recaros ;)
I'm looking to get a T350T in under 2 years time.

They go round corners like nothing I've been in.
 
  Octy vRS & Ninja 650
Great pics, good points made in this thread too.
Sorry if its already been asked, but what camera / lenses did you use for the shoot?
 
  Peugeot 207 GT THP
All pics were taken with a Canon EOS 350D and the lenses used were a Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4.5 and Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 APO DG Macro. The 17-70 is a decent lens which I'm just getting used to but the 70-300 is a budget lens which I've just replaced with a Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM and 1.4x converter.
 
  1998 BMW e46 323i
Well, the tour was really thorough. Saw most aspects of fabrication. But we were there along with customers choosing piping for upholstery and the like.

While outside, on the tour, an employee said to me "Do not buy a TVR". Moments later an employee booted a car into the grounds did a few dohnuts and parked it up.


Strange place. Came away feeling I'd been to a sporty division of BL at Longbridge!!!
 


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