Blackpool, England - More than 10 years after closing shop, British sportscar maker TVR has officially risen from the grave and its first-new age product, revealed on Friday morning, resurrects the Griffith nameplate.
The modern-looking two-seater is built around legendary SA-born designer Gordon Murray’s iStream carbon fibre composite architecture, which promises extreme rigidity of almost 20 000Nm per degree.
The new Griffith is powered by a Ford-sourced, front-mounted 5-litre V8 engine that’s been modified by Cosworth to produce 373kW.
Power goes to the back wheels the good old fashioned way, through a six-speed Tremec manual gearbox.
No performance numbers have been divulged as yet, but the 298kW-per-tonne power-to-weight ratio is mighty impressive.
The Griffith’s aerodynamic package includes a flat-underfloor design aimed at sucking the vehicle towards the road. This is made possible by the use of side exhausts.
Just 500 Launch Edition models will be produced, priced at just under £90 000 (R1.5m) in the UK.
TVR went into administration at the end of 2006, following an acquisition two years earlier by Russian youngster Nikolai Smolenski. In 2013 Smolenski sold the TVR brand to a British business consortium, which is currently in the process of reviving the brand, the first fruits of which you see here.
At this stage it remains unclear whether the TVR brand will ever return to South Africa.