TVR to return

Oh stop it Jonathan! You're bringing back the urge to buy another one! Yes, the Griff is a driving car par excellence and as you so eloquently post a thing of great beauty. We also found it extremely comfortable for long drives but it was rather difficult to keep your foot off the loud pedal. Mine was a 5 litre and had immense torque; just a constant stream of immense shove in fifth gear from minimal revs up to, well, you know. A guy we met at one of the TVR track days let me drive his 4 litre (and of course I returned the favour). There wasn't much in it really.

My neighbours called it "The Beast" from the lovely deep growl it made, but it's proper name, bestowed by SWMBO, was Terry. I did 24-5 K miles in him, the only fault being on one extremely cold day when my wife pulled hard on the passenger door release on the transmission tunnel & broke the cable. Easily fixed.

Very find memories of TVR track days at Snetterton, Donnington and Brands Hatch, remember the MD of TVR Peter Wheeler? was always there and very approachable. He took me round the Blackpool factory ( which was not unlike the feeling of Salisbury ) to see my V8S under construction. Later had a Chimera and a 5.0 Griff but my fondest memories was the first TVR, not as quick after 60mph but got there in around 3 secs!

I found my TVR's reliable only thing I had was some rust on the chassis, TVR took it back, stripped it and enamelled the chassis FOC after 3 years. Great service from HHC in Harrogate sadly not there now.

I still recall the feeling when turning the key when I swear you could hear each cylinder encouraging the next to wake up, then the noise from that exhaust, full statement could get close!

Really loving sharing your memories of TVR's you've owned - I used to love the fact that when I parked up at BA in the morning I would set various car alarms off with the burbling exhaust - the only other thing that did that was Concorde - and that was even more effective at it!!

I find the 4.0 litre scary enough so can't even begin to imagine what a 5.0 would be like Tony!!  I did for a time ponder a sensible car like a Toyota GT86 which I think is lovely and by all accounts a great handling car and very pretty, but to be honest I think I would miss that massive feeling of being thrust towards the horizon!!

Sorry if my recollections are proving expensive ;-))

What I'm most curious about is what you guys have moved on to now?  Do you still have a driver focussed car?  I commute in a Saab 9-3 convertible, probably the best all rounder I've ever had - the kids love being in the back with the roof down and all my Daughter's friends are hugely impressed by that plus its very comfortable, economical, reliable, safe, distinctive and quite a cool looking beast but for all that I can't bring myself to part with the TVR!

Jonathan 

Yes, Peter wheeler was a very nice bloke. Bit eccentric...

At my track day at Snetterton Peter was out in his Tuscan racer. We were told to just ignore him as he was an experienced racing driver & would keep out of our way. It was difficult because you were just waiting for him to come roaring past at huge speed. On my factory visit they were just shaping up what was to become the Tuscan road car. The bloke doing the business with the clay asked what I thought of it & I pointed to a bit on the front wing I felt should be a slightly different curve. He immediately adjusted it & I was quite chuffed to think I might have had a small hand in the Tuscan's design. Mind you, he probably put it back once I was out of the door!

Hi Jonathan,

I've had a succession of worthy but pretty boring cars since then but  we recently acquired a rather spiffing Mercedes SL500 as a fun car. It's not a TVR by any stretch but it's a lovely drive and has reawakened my interest in cars.

I took Mr Lockhart of this parish out for a little trundle the other day & he seemed to like it. Mind you, his Porsche ain't too shabby either!

...ahhhh! A fellow TVR owner!

Mine was collected on Tuesday to have a full engine rebuild - slipped a couple of cylinder liners back in January so bottom end shot.

Being rebuilt as a 5.0 litre rather than the 4.0 that she was.

Heads are too shot to re-use without being refurbed so a set of big valve heads are on their way too, new clutch, new World Class T5 gearbox ... she should be good when she's done which will hopefully be a fortnight.

No cats and no silencers ... the neighbors hate me!

If anyone's interested...

https://youtu.be/SthbMswkef4

Phil

You're late on parade Phil. I was expecting you sooner!

Been busy...

Very Eco-friendly Phil.  

 

Very Eco-friendly Phil.  

 

Absolutely...

...I have re-cycled it rather than disposing of it and buying something else.

In that way my carbon footprint is minimised and my halo remains untarnished.

Remember that after running an RX-8 for 76,000 miles (at an average of 17mpg) I'm one of the few people that can say that they bought a TVR to *SAVE* fuel!

Phil

Originally Posted by Steve J:

 

Very Eco-friendly Phil.  

 

 

Absolutely...

 

...I have re-cycled it rather than disposing of it and buying something else.

 

In that way my carbon footprint is minimised and my halo remains untarnished.

 

Remember that after running an RX-8 for 76,000 miles (at an average of 17mpg) I'm one of the few people that can say that they bought a TVR to *SAVE* fuel!

 

Phil

As much as I enjoy the idea of fast cars and motorbikes (and have indulged in both at certain times in my past), the era of motoring-as-recreation must surely be coming to an end. Anyone who sees a future for the planet should perhaps be assessing their use of resources. The fatalists who see no future? Well, simply grab the biggest share you can and make the most of it before it is all gone!

Hi WIC...

I'm sorry if my chosen 'hobby' offends you (I truly am).

Phil

Phil - an exciting project to rebuild your existing car to be even better than before - looking forward to seeing pics when it's done!  (Dom at TVR Power I take it?)

As for the environmental debate it's difficult isn't it?  Frankly I don't see battery cars as providing the solution and in any case the environmental cost of manufacturing them probably does more environmental damage than their petrol equivalents.  I suspect that Phil is right - it's better for the planet to make a car last than to upgrade to a more fuel efficient new one.  The truth is though that so many of the technologies we depend on (air travel, cars, plastics, shipping) simply don't yet have a viable alternative when the oil runs out.  I did have great hopes for hydrogen fuel cells when they showed a Honda prototype years ago on Top Gear but the technology does not seem to have matured as I anticipated.

The truth is that if we don't develop viable alternatives the planet runs the risk of being plunged into a new dark ages where we go backwards (it may already be happening with the loss of Concorde, the Space Shuttle and budgetary reductions on Space exploration).  Some would argue that people moving around less would be a good thing, but I do believe that mass air travel in particular has made the world a smaller place and that has greatly assisted people of different nations and cultures understanding each other better and fighting each other a little less.

As for savouring our beloved V8's - you may indeed be right, this may be the closing decades of truly rewarding and high performance motoring.  If that's true then a great pleasure will have been lost to future generations.

Jonathan

Keep the environment in perspective and remember that winky is an anti-car pro-cycling crusader!

8 billion people on the planet is the number one environmental problem.

All of us wanting the current western life-style (or better) is the second problem

I'm confident mankind will develop replacements for oil, which doesn't just just fuel transport but provides agriculture with fertiliser and tractor power and enables us to enjoy many, many other things, including Naim no doubt.

So I say, enjoy V8 motoring and worldwide travel.

Sure, many of us tinker with our environmental consciences.  I lean the mixture in our 4 cylinder piston engined aeroplanes. I have a 1989, 26 year old Mercedes estate car which over the 20 years and 200,000 miles that i've owned it has burned 6,000 gallons of petrol, but cost sod-all in terms of repairs and replacement parts and the associated embedded energy. I did recently ditch the S Class but that had nothing to do with the environment, and for economy reasons (rather than environmental ones) Mrs D did buy a manual 220 cdi C Class which I often use to clear my niggling conscience having left my hifi on 24/7.

Enjoy the motoring and the travel.

Diesels ain't the answer either, just a different type of pollution.

No - someone more local to me. Unfortunately cost of rebuild was very much an issue and it is 'only' an old Rover V8 - which is now a 70+ year old engine design - after all. I'm also not looking to build some hyper-tuned-and-delicately-balanced track day screamer either ... the law of diminishing returns comes in with a vengeance on these engines and if you're looking to put mega-horsepower into a Chim or Griff then by the time you're finished you might as well just swap over to a Chevy LS lump and a T56 'box.

As it is it's looking like my rebuild is going to cost me about £3.7k all in - that *SHOULD* be from the car arriving at the workshop on the back of a trailer to me driving it away - I had previously had quotes of £3.5k + VAT to rebuild it as a 4.0 and that was *WITHOUT* anything else going wrong or needing replacing *OR* fitting a new gearbox.

As it is I've had to add a new clutch, new heads, new cam and I'm sure there will be more to come (although I'm hoping not!!!).

It will be a *COMPLETELY* 'new' (i.e. rebuilt) 5.0 short block, 'new' big valve heads (my old heads were small valve and the valve guides were very worn), new cam (shame as my 'old' cam had only done 1,000 miles or so but the bases of a few of the followers were scuffed which shouldn't be the case after only 1,000 miles and sort of indicate that if the liners hadn't slipped then I'd have probably ended up with premature cam failure anyway), new clutch, new oil pump ... it's also having a brand new gearbox fitted that I bought about 18 months ago and haven't ever got round to doing so effectively we're looking at pretty much a brand new drivetrain.

Once that's done and run in then there's a set of 4 pot Brembo callipers and 324mm Focus RS discs to go on to it and if I can find somewhere local that will do it then I have been looking at replacing the Elton John headlights with VW Lupo ones - the non-sealed beam reflectors used on the Chim are stupidly expensive nowadays (£170 - £200 *EACH*) and all the silvering is coming off of mine.

Battery has been moved to the boot already as I'm 6ft3 and couldn't fit my legs into the passenger footwell with the battery down there - at the moment the old battery box is simply bolted to the boot floor but I'll eventually fit a new battery in above the fuel tank (nice and safe!) or tuck away a couple of smaller batteries - paralleled up - in the cubby holes behind the seats but I have been thinking of moving the fusebox to the passenger side cubby hole instead. :-)

As mine's a '94 car then it has the early slimline SPAL cooling fans and doesn't have any cowlings around them either so it overcools in winter and undercools in summer ... I've got a set of radiator cowlings from a later car *PLUS* a set of very meaty SPAL fans (that I believe were specified for the Tuscan) to go on at some point but before I can do that I need to move the coolant expansion tank from the chassis crossmember in front of the Y-Piece *AND* reroute the lower radiator hose to clear enough space for the cowlings and fans (plus uprate the fan supply as the existing fans draw 9 amps each and the new ones pull 23 amps each) ... but the new fans will *EACH* flow more air through the radiator than *BOTH* the old ones would when they were new!

I've had a complete new dash and radio panel cut to my own template and have a full set of new gauges - Smiths 'Flight' ones if you want to Google them - to go into that as the old gauges were failing (my odometer hasn't worked in years) and they are a non-standard size so I couldn't just replace them ... need to make up a loom for them though and also replace all the appropriate senders too!

Have a pair of Jaguar XJS seats waiting to have brackets made up for them ... then they'll be going in to replace the original seats that have had it! The Jag seats are electric and have position sensing pots on them so I've been looking at building up a couple of Arduino based control boxes for them that will give me control of the motors *AND* a memory function too.

Then it's just a retrim, respray and new roof and we're all done!

Damn - it would be easier and cheaper to have kids!

Phil

Remember Phil, if you had kids you could probably sell them for more than the cost of the rebuild. Worth considering.

That's going to be some rebuild! Guess the car's a keeper then?

Aren't they all Tony?

I've already had the original 14CUX ECU / AFM and distributor setup removed and replaced with a CANEMS ECU and coil packs - that actually did make a hell of a difference with regard to fuel consumption on a run - I now average mid-30's to the gallon if I go up to see my dad up north!

Phil

I'm not offended at all. It's small change in the scheme of things. Enjoy.