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TVR
TVR was established in 1947 by Trevor Wilkinson. The first cars were specials using the drivelines from production cars, tuned and installed in a lightweight TVR chassis with minimal bodywork to maximise the agility and power-to-weight ratio, which remain TVR virtues to this day.
TVR made use of proprietary engines, like many low-volume manufacturers, to power its cars for many years. However, there were those who opined that this somehow diminished the cachet of the Great British sports cars from Blackpool, despite the fact that the engines, by the late '80s, were very heavily modified to TVR's own unique, high-power specifications.
That began to change in the early '90s with the birth of the TVR V8 engine, which in 1995 became the world's first racing engine to be de-tuned and installed in a road car: the TVR Cerbera. The Cerbera was a rude awakening for the supercar establishment. "0-100mph in nine seconds dead," screamed Autocar magazine's front cover.
But the Speed Eight (aka AJP8) was only the beginning. In 1997, a Griffith Speed Six concept car was unveiled at the Earls Court Motor Show. It showcased the TVR Speed Six engine, a very modern take on the quintessentially British, growling straight-six. The Speed Six engine, like the Speed Eight, first appeared in the Cerbera. But the Speed Six is renowned as the power-house of the jaw-dropping Tuscan Speed Six that starred with John Travolta and Halle Berry in the Hollywood movie Swordfish.
The Speed Six is also the power plant of the T400R, with which TVR returned to Les 24 Heures du Mans in France in 2003 and 2004. Both Speed Six-powered T400Rs finished this most gruelling of automotive challenges - no mean feat in a class dominated by German and Italian stalwarts.
At the end of 2004, the Speed Eight engine, after an illustrious motorsport career, not to mention a spectacular crop of headlines in the world's motoring press, ceased production with the Cerbera. Now, the Speed Six engine, in various guises, is at the heart of every current TVR model.
