It has been more than 15 years since the British manufacturer TVR made a vehicle. Let’s say that financially speaking you have had a very bad time. In 2017 it threatened to rise from its ashes with the TVR Griffith prototype, a two-seater sports car with classic proportions with a 5.0 V8 engine of Ford origin -surely the Coyote of the Mustang-.
They haven’t made one yet, and that should have happened in 2019. They lacked money and the necessary props. We now know that TVR has secured the more than 25 million pounds it needed from Ensorcia, a South American company. The facilities of Ebbw Vale, in Wales, are waiting for what is necessary to arrive to be able to work.
Just four months ago, TVR partnered with Formula E and announced that its first electric car would be ready by 2024. That could be the TVR Griffith. It has its section on its website, where they don’t tell us much and invite us to sign up for a mailing list. The resemblance between the electric Griffith sketch and the V8 prototype is considerable.
On the same website, you can start the reservation process for a Griffith with a V8 engine. To join the list you would have to advance 5,000 pounds, the way to ensure one of the 500 units of the Launch Edition. Well, there is no doubt that they will make a single TVR Griffith V8. If the development and validation have not been completed, there is a risk that they are cars that cannot be registered.
According to the dean publication Autocar, it is most likely that it will only end up as electric due to the influence of its investors. Currently, the only cars in its category with a V8 engine are the Lexus LC500 and RC F, as well as the Ford Mustang. The American muscle car may end up receiving hybridization in a couple of years, perhaps with the seventh generation (the sixth was unveiled in December 2013).
TVR’s financial situation continues to be a juggling game and that conditions the deadlines. If they say they are giving up making V8s right now, they would have to start returning the deposits they have already collected, except for those customers who prefer to wait until TVR has something with an electric motor. Two other models are supposed to be in the oven, but we don’t know anything more about them. This is a question of faith.
