Dormant British brand TVR, famous for its fearsome sports cars such as the Sagaris and Typhon, has been revived and just days away from revealing a new car.
Developed from scratch, the new car, rumored to wear TVR’s Griffith nameplate, will be unveiled on Friday at the 2017 Goodwood Revival taking place in the United Kingdom—70 years on since the original TVR Engineering outfit was started by Trevor Wilkinson in Blackpool.
The car will be a grand touring coupe with a Cosworth-enhanced 5.0-liter V-8 borrowed from the Ford Mustang GT. The engine, which will output close to 500 horsepower, will be mounted up front and spin the rear wheels via a 6-speed manual transmission.
TVR’s car will also be the first production model to utilize iStream construction, where cars are constructed using minimal, pre-assembled parts. The key is a fit-for-purpose approach to material usage and low parts count. The production process is also almost fully mechanized so the cars can be churned out quicker and at lower cost than what niche brands are normally faced with.
TVR will also use iStream Carbon construction. This differs from regular iStream construction in that it uses carbon fiber instead of conventional materials. The process was devised by legendary Formula 1 racecar designer Gordon Murray.
Some of the claimed specs for TVR’s car include a weight—likely dry—of just 2,645 pounds, a 0-60 mph time of less than 4.0 seconds, and a top speed of 200 mph.
TVR says it has enough orders to keep it busy until the end of 2018. The first batch of cars will be 500 special launch editions, build slots for which are almost filled. Pricing for these starts below $117,285.
In the longer term, the company plans three other models, including a convertible, and is hopeful of building cars at the rate of 2,000 per year by 2022. Production will take place at a new plant in Wales.
