2003 TVR Griffith Reviews

TVR has marked its return to manufacturing with the reveal of the Griffith sportscar at the Goodwood Revival over the weekend.

Lamborghini, Tesla, TVR up for auction at Manheim's Exclusive Luxury and Exotic Vehicles auction.

Late last week, news broke that the assets of niche sports car manufacturer TVR, which hasn’t built a car since 2006, had just been sold. At the time, it wasn’t clear who the new owner was or what they planned to do with the assets, but we can now confirm that TVR will remain a sports car manufacturer for the time being.TVR’s previous owner, Russian businessman Nikolai Smolenski, had announced plans to use the company’s production facilities to start churning out wind turbines instead of sports cars. Thankfully, he ended up selling the business before the switch could happen.He sold the business to a British firm registered as TVR Automotive, whose director, Les Edgar, was interviewed recently by Top Gear. Edgar, whose background is in video games, though he also has links with Aston Martin, revealed that TVR’s new owner was keen to stay true to the brand’s roots (i.e. building raw sports cars with insane levels of performance).He also said TVR Automotive had the resources and acumen to succeed where Smolenski failed and that a lot of research was involved before the deal to purchase TVR’s assets was made.Unfortunately, the British exec couldn’t reveal any more details due to a non-disclosure agreement. Let’s hope we won’t have to wait too long until the next titbit of information surrounding TVR’s revival is revealed.www.motorauthority.com 

TVR was one of the more refreshing, yet slightly-mad, sports car manufacturers in the world. Its cars were uniquely styled and offered amazing performance for the price. But some shied away from the cars, mostly due to the cottage-industry build quality and out-of-place ergonomics. Many were reluctant to buy them due to the fact that TVR’s more recent models were devoid of electronic aids such as ABS as well as stability and traction control. Production in TVR’s historic plant in Blackpool, England, came to an end in 2006 and since then there have been numerous attempts to get the plant running again, including having staff switch to building wind turbines for energy companies. None of TVR’s plans have panned out, but a recent update of its official website provides hope. As noted by Autofans, the TVR website now has an image of its logo and the inscription “Never Say Never.” While this doesn’t necessarily mean that TVR is about to announce a comeback, it does appear much more optimistic than the site’s previous inscription of “We support all owners of TVR sports cars by ensuring supply of spares and development of alternative drivetrains. Nevertheless at the moment we do not manufacturer new cars. Any such claims in various media are fake.” The website is currently registered to a media company called HomePage Media Ltd though it was previously owned by an Austrian firm called TVR GmbH. Based in Vienna, TVR GmbH just a few years ago was offering to upgrade existing TVR Griffiths to TVR Sagaris models. While we’d love to see new TVRs roll off the production line in Blackpool, as the brand’s last owner Nikolai Smolenski explained in 2012, soaring costs and high expectations from customers have made the prospect unviable. www.motorauthority.com