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Written by Jason Barlow
Back in 2013, and seemingly out of nowhere, a British consortium led by a gentleman called Les Edgar announced that it had acquired TVR, lock, stock and smoking tyres. We tracked Les down, on the phone at least, and liked what he heard. Last month, the PR wheels began to rotate more quickly, when it was confirmed that the first all-new TVR for 12 years will debut at the Goodwood Revival in September. And as the first picture above shows, it"ll have a manual gearbox. The thing rather too many modern sports cars don"t have.The question is, especially for the younger end of the audience, how much should we care? Answer: a lot. TG and TVR go way back together, and we spent a good portion of the 1990s looking through the side windows of Lord knows how many of these cars. But as the fully automated electric car world draws ever closer, TVR"s commitment to internally combusting old-school high performance has never been more welcome. Factor in that TVR"s new owners have also engaged the services of a company called GMD Gordon Murray Design to develop the car, and it"s clear this comeback has serious legs.Time, then, for a proper face-to-face summit, which was scheduled for the week after Le Mans because Les was there. Le Mans, it turns out, is a key part of the plan: TVR will be racing there much sooner than you might think. Interestingly, it was Les who masterminded Aston"s return to endurance racing in the early Noughties, having secured the license to run the programme, before doing the deal with David Richards at Prodrive. Apparently, a Vanquish-based LMP1 contender was on the drawing board for a while, before financial realities kicked in, and the programme switched instead to the DB9 and Vantage (highly successfully, not least in 2017 when it took a class win).We"ve done massive amounts of computer modelling on this. We"ve also done accelerated salt water corrosion tests. It won"t rustThe more you find out about Les Edgar, 57, the more reassuring New TVR starts to sound. Edgar"s background is in computer games, which has given him both a buccaneering creative spirit but also a powerful pragmatism. He"s also a committed petrolhead, one with rarefied tastes. He talks animatedly about his Aston Martin N600 Vantage another Nineties British bruiser and more wistfully about the Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato and Ferrari 250 GT SWB competizione he used to own (he sold the latter to Eric Clapton). Then there"s the way he and his colleagues set about wresting TVR back from its previous owner, the young son of a Russian oligarch."We had an in-road into Nikolai Smolensky," he tells me. "He was disinterested at first. But then he told me a story that led to my bid. He was in Berkeley Square in London when a kid, who was walking with his father, came up to him, kicked him in the shins and shouted, you killed TVR!" I suggested we could help him repatriate the brand to the UK. It was a bizarrely straightforward transaction after that."Top Gear: Give me the elevator pitch on New TVR.Les Edgar: Six-speed manual, 5.0-litre Cosworth V8, shouty, great looking, top speed 200mph although we can limit it if you want 0-60 comfortably sub-4.0 secs, Gordon Murray designed, full ground-effect aero, carbon fibre chassis, full leather trim, unique colours. We"re targeting power-to-weight ratio rather than outright power. Fully loaded, the launch car weighs under 1,250kg and has 400bhp-per-tonne. We"ll have to eke some more out of it All for 90k. That sounds pretty good to me.TG: Is your take on TVR that it"s a balls-out sports car? Or a grand tourer?LE: It"s more towards the Aston spectrum than it is Lotus. Sports GT is where we"re headed. Sports cars should be small. An Aventador is not a sports car. The Griff rides well because it"s on smaller wheels and taller tyres, which is what we"ve gone for. It"s more comfortable. The new car had to be timeless, although that"s a difficult thing to strive for. The Griff had simplicity. We tried to get that with this car, but there had to be some cues that tell you it means business. So there are thumping exhausts at the side, and lots of aero at the rear. We"ve avoided fitting too many electronics; they"re expensive and will be unreliable at some point, although we do have digital instruments and a touchscreen infotainment system. We"ve used ultra-reliable components and then bespoked" them to TVR"s need.TG: Doesn"t the Porsche 911 terrify you?LE: Everyone looks at the 911 and thinks, well, they got everything right", in all the key parameters. Everything but nothing, in a strange sort of way. 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 under-dog challenging everybody, whether on the road or the race-track. The passion drives us on. It sounds trite, but it"s true. If you haven"t got that, you"ll build a competent car, but you won"t build a TVR. That said, we have built an incredibly sound business case.
Date written: 10 Aug 2017
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 8779
Back in 2013, and seemingly out of nowhere, a British consortium led by a gentleman called Les Edgar announced that it had acquired TVR, lock, stock and smoking tyres. We tracked Les down, on the phone at least, and liked what he heard. Last month, the PR wheels began to rotate more quickly, when it was confirmed that the first all-new TVR for 12 years will debut at the Goodwood Revival in September. And as the first picture above shows, it"ll have a manual gearbox. The thing rather too many modern sports cars don"t have.The question is, especially for the younger end of the audience, how much should we care? Answer: a lot. TG and TVR go way back together, and we spent a good portion of the 1990s looking through the side windows of Lord knows how many of these cars. But as the fully automated electric car world draws ever closer, TVR"s commitment to internally combusting old-school high performance has never been more welcome. Factor in that TVR"s new owners have also engaged the services of a company called GMD Gordon Murray Design to develop the car, and it"s clear this comeback has serious legs.Time, then, for a proper face-to-face summit, which was scheduled for the week after Le Mans because Les was there. Le Mans, it turns out, is a key part of the plan: TVR will be racing there much sooner than you might think. Interestingly, it was Les who masterminded Aston"s return to endurance racing in the early Noughties, having secured the license to run the programme, before doing the deal with David Richards at Prodrive. Apparently, a Vanquish-based LMP1 contender was on the drawing board for a while, before financial realities kicked in, and the programme switched instead to the DB9 and Vantage (highly successfully, not least in 2017 when it took a class win).We"ve done massive amounts of computer modelling on this. We"ve also done accelerated salt water corrosion tests. It won"t rustThe more you find out about Les Edgar, 57, the more reassuring New TVR starts to sound. Edgar"s background is in computer games, which has given him both a buccaneering creative spirit but also a powerful pragmatism. He"s also a committed petrolhead, one with rarefied tastes. He talks animatedly about his Aston Martin N600 Vantage another Nineties British bruiser and more wistfully about the Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato and Ferrari 250 GT SWB competizione he used to own (he sold the latter to Eric Clapton). Then there"s the way he and his colleagues set about wresting TVR back from its previous owner, the young son of a Russian oligarch."We had an in-road into Nikolai Smolensky," he tells me. "He was disinterested at first. But then he told me a story that led to my bid. He was in Berkeley Square in London when a kid, who was walking with his father, came up to him, kicked him in the shins and shouted, you killed TVR!" I suggested we could help him repatriate the brand to the UK. It was a bizarrely straightforward transaction after that."Top Gear: Give me the elevator pitch on New TVR.Les Edgar: Six-speed manual, 5.0-litre Cosworth V8, shouty, great looking, top speed 200mph although we can limit it if you want 0-60 comfortably sub-4.0 secs, Gordon Murray designed, full ground-effect aero, carbon fibre chassis, full leather trim, unique colours. We"re targeting power-to-weight ratio rather than outright power. Fully loaded, the launch car weighs under 1,250kg and has 400bhp-per-tonne. We"ll have to eke some more out of it All for 90k. That sounds pretty good to me.TG: Is your take on TVR that it"s a balls-out sports car? Or a grand tourer?LE: It"s more towards the Aston spectrum than it is Lotus. Sports GT is where we"re headed. Sports cars should be small. An Aventador is not a sports car. The Griff rides well because it"s on smaller wheels and taller tyres, which is what we"ve gone for. It"s more comfortable. The new car had to be timeless, although that"s a difficult thing to strive for. The Griff had simplicity. We tried to get that with this car, but there had to be some cues that tell you it means business. So there are thumping exhausts at the side, and lots of aero at the rear. We"ve avoided fitting too many electronics; they"re expensive and will be unreliable at some point, although we do have digital instruments and a touchscreen infotainment system. We"ve used ultra-reliable components and then bespoked" them to TVR"s need.TG: Doesn"t the Porsche 911 terrify you?LE: Everyone looks at the 911 and thinks, well, they got everything right", in all the key parameters. Everything but nothing, in a strange sort of way. 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 under-dog challenging everybody, whether on the road or the race-track. The passion drives us on. It sounds trite, but it"s true. If you haven"t got that, you"ll build a competent car, but you won"t build a TVR. That said, we have built an incredibly sound business case.
Date written: 10 Aug 2017
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 8779
