TVR has been back for some time with the new Griffith, a car marketed as a thoroughbred British racing car and eventual icon. With rear-wheel drive, manual transmission and a V8 engine straight from the legends of Cosworth, it is sure to soothe the ears of any gasoline-powered car.
The new Griffith retains the same formula as the old TVRs that stopped production in 2006. The Blackpool-based manufacturer had a fairly wide range of products for such a small manufacturer. For 2006 they produced the Tamora, T350, Typhon, Sagaris, Cerbera and the Tuscan. With minimal safety features, fancy design and large displacement engines, these cars are Britain’s answer to the muscle car.
The Tuscan was the sweet spot in the range as it was considerably larger than the T350R, but with more agility and more unusual looks than the Cerbera. In production from 1996 to 2006, the full title of the Tuscan is TVR Tuscan Speed Six, a nod to the old TVR Tuscan from the 1960s, which it is based on in design, albeit with a more detailed design.
The TVR Tuscan is the TVR range’s sweet spot that balances appearance and performance.
The TVR Tuscany looks like nothing else
Via: Wikimedia Commons
In 2019 Evo magazine returned to TVR Tuscan, describing it as “impossibly curvy” and “the definitive TVR of the modern age”. It may not be as crazy as the TVR Cerbera Speed 12, a V12-equipped GT1 racing car that can rival McLaren F1.
However, with TVR’s 360-horsepower in-line six engines known as Speed Six, and a double exhaust setup that was unbearable from a performance point of view, it was all a TVR needed for the 3.6-liter car in 4.4 seconds to get 60 mph and 3.7 seconds for the 4.0 liter car, according to the TVR Car Club.
The company is divided into different eras, each one is quite unique, under the founder Trevor Wilkinson the company manufactured kit cars. Lilley racing classics against Colin Chapman at Lotus and under Wheeler, the cars became iconic wedges before being revived in the 1990s, developing the curves that dominated the design language of the cars until the company filed for bankruptcy. The Tuscan is the culmination of this move towards curvaceous design as there isn’t a single straight line on the exterior of the car. When it first launched in 1999, nothing on the street had this same design aesthetic.
In a peculiar way, the Mark 1 Audi TT is closest to the cornering level of Tuscany on the road, but where this creates a cute looking aesthetic, the Tuscan uses a long domed hood to look like a shark.
A quick look through the used car market underlines this further, there are many cars in different shades of silver and gray as well as in blue and red different colors, a characteristic feature of these late TVR models.
Lighter than a hatchback
Via: Flickr
The 360 horsepower figure doesn’t sound particularly exciting if the new Golf R is just over 300 horsepower, but Carfolio claims the Tuscan weighs 2,425 pounds. For perspective, the Volkswagen Up! weighs nearly 2,050 lbs, according to Car Wow. A Fiat 500 Abarth is heavier at just under 2,520 lbs, and they can be pretty fast really, that kind of power-to-weight ratio is impressive, dangerous and a little crazy.
These weight savings were achieved through compromises that simply wouldn’t be possible these days. Things like traction control and airbags went out the window. In the early 2000s, the TVR brand was criticized as unsafe in national newspapers for avoiding these modern security features. In 2004, Peter Wheeler spoke to Piston Heads and explained the reasons for their philosophy.
Piston Heads expresses its belief in airbags: “The latest line of TVRs are built with either full roll cages or, in the case of open cars, with a windshield surround that is an integral part of the chassis and provides rollover protection.” Wheeler thinks these technologies are unnecessary.
The same attitudes directed against the grain carry through into the interior. Light leather. Strange shapes. The occasionally exposed screw. Trade Classics described the Toscana as an “Alien’s Car” and they are right; it is unique and different from its contemporaries or today’s sports cars.
The TVR Tuscan came with a smaller engine
Via Pinterest
However, unlike older TVRs, this is not a fully analog experience as the Tuscan comes with power steering, an aid to long journeys and low-speed maneuvers that make the car easier to use.
Evo wrote that “the Tuscan is so sharp” and retained the “weighty” feel of the brand’s previous models. But it’s not the top of all TVR. With such a small development budget, the manufacturer could not afford to develop its own engines for a long time, which led to engines being taken over from Ford and Rover. In the circles of TVR owners, the power of the Rover V8 engine is missing.
The replacement for this engine was the TVR Speed 8, but this did not find its way into the Tuscan road car, instead powering the Tuscan racing car and the Cerbera. With a sufficiently powerful engine, low curb weight, exhilarating driving dynamics and a look that is out of this world, the Tuscan is an excellent sports car from the early noughties.
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About the author
Douglas Hamilton
(107 published articles)
Douglas Hamilton is a British driven man with a degree in literature. He grew up surrounded by F1, Need For Speed and classic cars. He has a worrying obsession with jaguars.
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