Five Classic Trials
TVR Chimaera
The TVR Chimaera’s ten-year career showed off the Peter Wheeler era at its best. A shrewd amalgam of power, style and comfort, Bristol Avenue’s entry-level model began its career taking the fight back to Morgan, MG and Marcos and finished it in the shadow of the spectacular cars that it helped to bankroll – the Tamora, T350 and Tuscan.
As the latter was battling Ford Explorers and Lincoln Navigators in the John Travolta film Swordfish, supplies of the Rover V8, Griffith and Chimaera were running down.
That the Chimaera – appropriately named after a hybrid of mythical beasts – offered so much for so little was due to its skilful use of bought in componentry, elevating it above its small-scale contemporaries. If a Griffith or Cerbera was too daunting for a first-time sports car owner, a Chimaera offered 90 per cent of the experience with a more approachable air.
It’s with this in mind that I approach Neil Craddock’s 2002 Chimaera Limited Edition 450 – the last of the line.
Décor does so much for a cabin – and Bristol Avenue knew the Chimaera backwards by 2002. Gone are the earlier cars’ cream hide and warmly faced dials; Neil’s 450 has pale leather and matching dials, complete with a digital odometer that only arrived on the very last Chimaeras. The aluminium switchgear is far more solid than the former car and it’s a small irony that Neil’s car, one of the last 98
Chimaeras made, has a wood fascia as standard. Otherwise, the control layout remains the same – well-padded seats, a slightly offset pedal box and a fat transmission tunnel dominate.
TVR knew its market – the Chimaera and Griffith had the least intimidating interiors of all the Wheeler-era cars; early models went heavy on the wood and leather ambience to emphasise their luxury Brit GT credentials.
Fire up, and the stubby five-speed falls well to hand, the throws and ratios of the 450’s Borg Warner T5 is a deal smoother than the gritty LT77 fitted to very early Chimaeras.
Well-weighted, sensitively-valved power steering takes the weight out of manoeuvring, too; it was an option on most Chimaeras but Neil’s car has it – all the better for turning the 16-inch wheels fitted to these last models. You still use a three-spoke Personal wheel to string the bends together – and while it looks the same as earlier cars, Neil’s LE 450 stands at the very end of a series of ongoing improvements applied to TVRs as and when the factory could incorporate them. You sometimes hear of post1996 and post-2001 Chimaeras being called ‘Series 2’ or ‘Series 3’ (MkII or MkIII) cars, but Bristol Avenue never officially referred to them in this way.
There’s far less tramlining at the helm of Neil’s car than there was in earlier 400s that we have driven, too; it was the only real dynamic flaw in those cars’ armour.
The Chimaera’s suspension set-up was as good as it was going to get by 2002; fostering long distance GT aspirations, longer travel Bilstein dampers with softer spring rates marked the Chimaera out from other TVRs.
Neil’s car is typical of the breed, its wider tyres offering greater grip with the similar insulating squish evident from the fairly high profile carcasses.
And what an excellent engine that 4.6-litre V8 is – perhaps a sweet spot among all the TVR Power V8s, the 4.6 was easily the most overbuilt, with cross-bolted bearing caps intended for use in (and developed for) the Range Rover P38A. With far less vehicle to shove around, and with TVR’s improvements, the results speak for themselves; while the 5.0-litre cars did offer slightly more power, the bigger engine’s main improvement was in the amount of torque that it produced.
Neil’s 4.6 offers the best of both worlds
– most of the 5.0-litre’s fat torque curve combined with the smoothness and willingness to rev of the smallest 4.0-litre V8.
It’s easy to see how a late Chimaera 450 could go the distance if looked after properly; combining the best chassis protection ever offered by the company and the least stressed engine, Neil’s car is a throaty bass reminder of how good it was at introducing newcomers to the marque.