WHY IT HAS ALL GONE QUIET AT TVR – FOR NOW
What’s happening at TVR? It has all gone deadly quiet. Since the official launch of the new Griffith at the Goodwood Revival in September 2017, we’ve had a news story in December announcing that the Griffith would be built in a factory in Ebbw Vale, in a building that was the former home of a company called Techboard.
Then in January this year, the Welsh government took a 3% stake in TVR (worth £500,000) and lent the company £2 million. Then there were a few announcements about a Tvrsponsored car at Le Mans and a story online that TVR chairman Les Edgar had bought a country club near his home in Surrey. And that’s it, apart from a few appearances by the sole Griffith at a few events.
So we rang Edgar for a catchup. There’s no obvious official route to contacting TVR – no PR department or office phone number – so it required a bit of old-fashioned hackery to find a mobile number. Edgar is very approachable and straight. The obvious starter for 10 is what’s the score with the factory? Currently, it’s a run-down dilapidated unit fenced off and clearly not being worked on at all.
“It’s frustrating, that’s for sure,” said Edgar. “Under EU rules, the Welsh government has had to follow a sevenmonth tender process for the work to bring the building up to standard. At last, that period has run, and in January next year, the contract will be given to the winning company. From then, it’s going to take six months to get the building ready for us. We’ve asked if we can be allowed to carry out some of our own preparations alongside these works to save time.
“Obviously, the Griffith won’t be built on a line as such. Cars will be moved on dollies so actually fitting out for production won’t take long at all. I’m talking more about infrastructure.”
The talk at the launch last year was of the first production car coming off the ‘line’ at the end of 2019. Presumably, there’s going to be some delay between the work being awarded and the winning company actually starting work at the site, unless the tender goes to a building contractor that actually turns up when it says it will. Unlikely. Let’s give it two months, which, added to the six, gives us a completion date of August. Clearly, production will be delayed.
“It’s virtually impossible to give a date for delivery of the first customer car,” said Edgar, “until we know where we are with the factory. We could possibly start building cars in the smaller unit that will be handed over to us in March, which at the moment is intended as a training, test and prototype centre.”
As for the car itself, how is development going? “Well, we’ve got about 75% of the components sourced; certainly all the main parts of the car,” said Edgar. “There has been a hold-up because Ford’s new Coyote engine has meant that we’ve had significant extra work that’s really duplicating what’s already been done.”
Those with deposits on the first Griffiths – and there are about 500 of them – appear to be very patient if the lack of whinging on social media is an accurate gauge. Perhaps many of them have been through this before with TVR in the old days and have learnt how to play the waiting game. Edgar seems to be good at keeping them posted with updates, the latest of which contains footage of tyre testing at Castle Combe in the one and only Griffith. We suspect that plenty more patience is going to be needed, especially from those at the back end of the list.