TVR Is Coming Back, With Cosworth Power And A Design By Gordon Murray

If we were to play a game of word association and I said ‘TVR’, you might respond with something like ‘noise’, ‘danger’, ‘plastic’, or perhaps ‘bankrupt’. The Blackpool-based company weathered many financial storms during its history, but after being driven to the brink under the ownership of Russian Billionaire Nikolay Smolensky, TVR hasn’t produced a car for the best part of 10 years. The brand was sold off in 2013 - bought by a consortium led by Les Edgar - and after years of rumours and proposals that never became reality, it looks as though there’s at last a solid plan in place.

The rebirth looks jolly promising indeed. A new car is due to begin production in 2017, and according to TVR it’ll be “engineered in collaboration with” a certain Gordon Murray. You know, that chap who designed the McLaren F1, and a load of legendary Formula 1 cars. The news keeps on getting better, as the power plant will be a naturally-aspirated, dry-sumped V8 developed by Cosworth. This will send its power to the rear, via a manual gearbox. The price point will be “consistent with TVR’s positioning in the past,” which means - based on the price of the Sagaris (above) when it was last on sale, adjusted for inflation - we can expect a car costing around £60-70,000.

Given TVR’s turbulent past, it’d be easy to be pessimistic at this point, particularly with other powerful - and very good - rear-drive coupes being available for the same sort of cash. Just look at Jaguar’s F-Type coupe, for instance. However, in this case, we’re suppressing our cynicism and holding out hope. The ingredients for this car sound brilliant, and it’d be epic to have TVR back.