Autocar July 22, 2020

THERE CAN HARDLY be a better indicator that British industry is getting back on track than hearing how TVR is formulating plans to start building cars again. The 63-year-old sports car company has had plenty of ups and downs in a colourful history, but its best moments have nearly always been associated with good times for the country, so news that its owners are finding new investors and readying a new factory is promising indeed. Soon, though, the company’s progress will be in the hands of the buyers – as it will be in all corners of the car industry. Which makes us fervently hope that anyone who was considering a car purchase before Covid will follow through now. There’s a fair bit of disagreement among pundits about whether business will…

THERE CAN HARDLY be a better indicator that British industry is getting back on track than hearing how TVR is formulating plans to start building cars again. The 63-year-old sports car company has had plenty of ups and downs in a colourful history, but its best moments have nearly always been associated with good times for the country, so news that its owners are finding new investors and readying a new factory is promising indeed. Soon, though, the company’s progress will be in the hands of the buyers – as it will be in all corners of the car industry. Which makes us fervently hope that anyone who was considering a car purchase before Covid will follow through now. There’s a fair bit of disagreement among pundits about whether business…

TVR has outlined a bold 18-month plan to reboot its activities and bring its Griffith sports car to production in 2022 by raising new funds in the bond market and pressing ahead to fit out its assembly facility in Ebbw Vale, Wales. The revitalised firm, whose principal directors, chairman Les Edgar and operations chief John Chasey, were joined late last year by a new CEO, Jim Berriman, is now in the throes of raising £25 million on the Dublin bond market – Europe’s largest. The bosses calculate that by the time TVR starts building cars, it will have spent around £45m on the project. TVR already holds orders worth around £40m for the 200mph Griffith, which was revealed at the Goodwood Revival in 2017. The company says it continues to enjoy the…

TVR has outlined a bold 18-month plan to reboot its activities and bring its Griffith sports car to production in 2022 by raising new funds in the bond market and pressing ahead to fit out its assembly facility in Ebbw Vale, Wales. The revitalised firm, whose principal directors, chairman Les Edgar and operations chief John Chasey, were joined late last year by a new CEO, Jim Berriman, is now in the throes of raising £25 million on the Dublin bond market – Europe’s largest. The bosses calculate that by the time TVR starts building cars, it will have spent around £45m on the project. TVR already holds orders worth around £40m for the 200mph Griffith, which was revealed at the Goodwood Revival in 2017. The company says it continues to…

To come up with an accurate answer to such a burning question, you must first assess what TVR has achieved. It has a stable management team and a well-engineered first product that complies with safety legislation across the world and can serve as an excellent basis for other variants in the future. There’s a place to build it (despite the snail’s-pace planning approvals), plus the support of the greater Welsh government, which has even invested in the project. TVR also has a modern production process especially designed for simplicity and thus well suited to the factory’s somewhat remote location. TVR cars have a persona that’s well understood, and the reborn company’s desirable-looking first product, the Griffith, does nothing to shake that understanding. Best of all, it has supporters and potential buyers who…

Travelling via Land Rover and Rolls-Royce may not be the conventional route to making low-volume 200mph sports cars, but Jim Berriman insists the disciplines he learned on his way to TVR are highly relevant. “There’s a very serious side to what we’re doing,” he said. “We’re reviving a brand in a sustainable way, so it provides direct employment in the UK and supports the supply base. Post-Brexit, I’d call that a great news story for British manufacturing.” Berriman joined the Rover Group as a manufacturing engineering graduate not long before Land Rover began preparing the original Freelander. After that, he was seconded to Munich, under BMW’s halo, to work on the L322 – the third-generation Range Rover. He returned to the UK to see the model into production but was enticed back to…