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.
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.
