Background
Famous Trevors are relatively thin on the ground. McDonald, the ITV newscaster, and Francis, the England footballer spring to mind, but after that the mind goes blank. Until you recall Trevor Wilkinson. Which is, of course, where TVR got its name – founder Wilkinson simply removed the vowels from his first name, stuck them on a sign above his new workshop, and a British sports car legend was born.
This was way back in 1946, and Wilkinson concentrated on building cars for track use, based on fairly run of the mill mechanical components and his own chassis and bodywork designs. He had a fair degree of success with cars racing in America, but it was with the launch of the Grantura road car in 1958 that the story really hots up.
With pretty glassfibre bodywork, a steel chassis and engines that ranged from Ford 105E, through Coventry Climax and ultimately the MGB’s 1800cc unit, the new sports car got rave reviews and the order book looked healthy.
Then in 1963 a car that was to provide a foretaste of 1990s TVRs was built – the Griffith, named after the American racer whose idea it was. It was a simple enough formula – take one TVR Grantura Mk3 and nail in a 4.7-litre Ford V8 engine. The accelerative performance of the car exceeded expectations – and the capabilities of the brakes and chassis, which had been left unmodified and, by all accounts were woefully inadequate when matched with the American V8.
But in a short period of time, David Hives at the Hoo Hill TVR factory built a second prototype that was better developed and better finished, as well as three engineless cars destined for Griffith's business in New York.
Sadly, just as TVR was starting to gain traction in the mainstream motoring press, it’s inability to produce more than one car a month, plus the strain of servicing a £10,000 bank debt started to show, and in 1964 Trevor Wilkinson left the firm after it went into liquidation.
It then went through various owners until it was bought by Peter Wheeler in the 1980s. A TVR enthusiast and chemical engineer who had specialised in manufacturing components for the oil industry, Wheeler moved away from naturally aspirated and forced induction V6 engines to large V8, namely the Rover.
Engine capacity grew from 3.5 to 5 litres. In 1988, TVR sourced a 5-litre Holden V8 through Tom Walkinshaw at Holden Special Vehicles. The engine was installed in the TVR White Elephant, a prototype car built for Wheeler by John Ravenscroft. The Holden powered TVR White Elephant was later superseded by the Rover V8 powered Griffith prototype.
With the TVR S Series, first produced in 1986, Wheeler re-introduced the traditional design elements from the previously successful 3000M of 1975. The S became a great success for the company, and he followed up by introducing a number of new and bold body shapes, including the later Chimaera, Griffith, Cerbera, Tuscan, Tamora, T350, Typhon and Sagaris.
