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Financial problems continued, and in 1962, after
stretching the company’s limited resource, Trevor Wilkinson left the company
and finally collapsed by 1965. Arthur
and Martin Lilley, who raced the Griffith bought the assets and founded TVR
Engineering Ltd., in November of 1965. Gradually, they increased the production output and improved the quality. TVR re-launched the Griffith as the Tuscan V8 (it reached a top speed of 170 mph!); the Vixen, a refined a lengthen Grantura and another Tuscan with a 3-liter Ford V6. By the 1960s the company had financial stability and even
profitability culminating in a move to the current factory in Bristol Avenue
in Blackpool, England in 1970. In 1971, TVR Engineering Ltd. officially moved out of the
kit car market with the M-series. During
this time, the company unveiled its first convertible, the 3000S and at the
same time several TVR tuners came out to give a hand, among them Ralph Broad
who turbocharged the Taimar V6 to give 230-bhp, doing the quarter mile
slightly quicker than the Porsche 911 Turbo. TVR was the first British manufacturer to introduce
turbo-charging in a series production car. The current TVR look, which is the pear-shaped started to arrive in 1980 with the Tasmin, named after Martin Lilley’s girlfriend. The chassis was designed by ex-Lotus man Ian Jones and was powered by a 2.8-liter Ford V6 engine with fuel injection and 160-bhp. However, the cash outlay needed to produce the Tasmin as well as poor vehicle sales almost brought TVR again to the brink of collapse. Peter Wheeler, a chemical engineer who drove a Taimar
Turbo bought the company in 1980. His
restructuring project involved dropping the plans for a Tasmin Turbo and
instead looking for more power from Rover’s light-alloy V8 that produced
190-bhp By 1986, Wheeler thought that TVR was beginning to loose
its focus. The company, who used
to create cheaper and powerful sports cars, was beginning to experiment with
light-alloy components including Kevlar, which was very expensive.
He then thought of the 3000s with a fuel-injected 2.9-liter Ford V6.
It sported a retro look and soon became TVR’s bestseller. By the 1990s, TVR reverted back to the curved look with the V8S and then the new Griffith. The new V8-powered Griffith easily beat the Porsche 968 Cabrio and Mserati Spyder in 1992 in both price and performance. The TVR Chimaera was faster still. In the same year, Wheeler announced that TVR Engineering would be building its own engine: the AJP engine. The rest is history. In 1962, the original Griffith was born. The Griffith, regarded by many as TVR’s serious sports car, is actually a Grantura with a 271-bhp 4.7-liter Ford V8 engine. Apart from the front suspension modifications, bonnet bulges and twin tailpipes, it was difficult to see the difference between the Griffith and the Grantura, unless you clock them, because a Griffith can do zero to 100 kilometers per hour in 5 seconds. |
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