Car enthusiasts and fans of British sports car manufacturer TVR will shed a collective tear after learning of the company’s intent to pull out of the auto industry in favor of a new venture developing portable wind turbines.
Autocar reports current TVR owner, and Russian investor, Nikolai Smolensky has scrapped plans on restarting production on new TVR models. Smolensky, who purchased the Blackpool, England-based company back in 2004, has been anything but successful in guiding TVR out of its troubles. Two years after purchasing the company from former owner Peter Wheeler for a rumored £15 million, the Russian businessmen split TVR into a number of different companies, with each one handling various aspects such as licensing, parts, and manufacturing assets.
Unfortunately TVR continued to struggle with Smolensky eventually moving to Austria where he allegedly began work on three different prototypes aimed at re-launching the beleaguered British firm. “We built three cars,” Smolensky told Autocar, “A Tuscan Mk2 convertible with a 400bhp Corvette LS3 engine, a Cerbera powered by a BMW twin-turbo V8 diesel and a GT350 powered by a 100kW electric motor.” Needless to say none made it out of the concept stage.
So why go through all that trouble in the first place? Apparently production costs were “too high to make sense” to turn the type of profit Smolensky was after. There were even talks of a deal between TVR and Caterham to aid in the manufacturing process, but financially the move didn’t provide Smolensky any financial confidence.
We’re not sure where this leaves TVR’s long-term future, but sadly it looks like the company won’t be making new cars anytime soon. At this point we’ll just have to reminisce about the days of yore and think back to the first time we glimpsed a TVR Tuscan Speed 6 in the flesh.
