New Car/Review

TVR 1997

by Paul Negyesi

TVR is one of the latest independent strongholds of the once proud Britishcar industry.

Peter Wheeler, the Chairman of TVR always seek new challenges: the demandfor TVRs was strong in Far East. So he established a plant there!International racing is very good for publicity. So he decided to enterin the BPR GT series.

TVR 7/12
This is the car which will compete with the likes of the Porsche 911 GT1,the renewed McLaren F1 GTR, Lister Storm and lots of other competitors.TVR used modified Rover engines for quite a long time. Now the time has cometo design or comission engines for themselves.
The heart of the 7/12, a 660 bhp V12-engine, which has an incredible 830 Nmmaximum torque was designed by Al Melling, head of a small British company:MCD.
It has aluminium alloy block and heads, and a single overhead cam per bankwith two valves per cylinder. The entire engine weighs only 160 kg.
The 7/12 is based on an all-new spaceframe backbone chassis, which hintsat the Cerbera GT race car. It will include a full FIA roll cage, whichwill stiffen the body.
The look was dictated by the GT racing rules. It also has to be road-legal,which means that all the rigorous tests (like crash) have to be passed and afew road-homolagated examples will be built. But just as with the Porsche 911GT1 racing was the key.
The test runs are now under way and probably we'll see the car in actionin early 1998.

TVR Speed Six
Take an awarded style, add a new straight-six engine, spice it with traditionand You'll get the British rival of the Porsche Boxster: the new SpeedSix.
It's based on the Griffith, whose shape won a design award in Britain forits style. It's been slightly changed.
The new AJP6 engine will be offered in two capacities: 3.5 and 4.1 litres.The 3.5 is the sportier: more power, less torque: 380 bhp/280 lb ft.
The 4.1 has equal power/torque: 330

The Rover V8-engined Griffith will be on the price list as well.