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The owner of the TVR sports car name has given up hope of ever restarting production. Nikolai Smolensky, a Vienna-based Russian investor, has spent years developing various TVR prototypes but told Autocar that costs and customer demands are now too high to make the project viable.
He is taking the name to a new venture building portable wind turbines.
Smolensky bought the Blackpool-based firm in 2004 for a rumoured £15 million and operated it in fits and starts until production ceased at the end of 2006.
Amid difficulties with retrenchments and the sale of assets, Smolensky moved to Austria, where he set about building three prototypes with the hope of kickstarting a modern era for TVR.
“We built three cars,” said Smolensky. “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. They all worked well, but the costs were high. We would have to sell them at between £100,000 and £200,000, which was too high to make sense.”
At one stage Smolensky says he was close to striking a deal with Caterham Cars to provide support for a manufacturing operation, but he lacked confidence that the cars would sell profitably. Spare parts for existing cars remain available through Performance Engines, Racing Green and TVR Power.
Smolensky has no plans to sell the TVR name, but says he will listen to proposals. “People contact me sometimes,” he said. “But any TVR plan would have to deliver a good return.”
Now i thought this was Sad, well R.i.p TVR, what you guys think:idea:
Thanks from "http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/tvr-production-restart-shelved"
He is taking the name to a new venture building portable wind turbines.
Smolensky bought the Blackpool-based firm in 2004 for a rumoured £15 million and operated it in fits and starts until production ceased at the end of 2006.
Amid difficulties with retrenchments and the sale of assets, Smolensky moved to Austria, where he set about building three prototypes with the hope of kickstarting a modern era for TVR.
“We built three cars,” said Smolensky. “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. They all worked well, but the costs were high. We would have to sell them at between £100,000 and £200,000, which was too high to make sense.”
At one stage Smolensky says he was close to striking a deal with Caterham Cars to provide support for a manufacturing operation, but he lacked confidence that the cars would sell profitably. Spare parts for existing cars remain available through Performance Engines, Racing Green and TVR Power.
Smolensky has no plans to sell the TVR name, but says he will listen to proposals. “People contact me sometimes,” he said. “But any TVR plan would have to deliver a good return.”
Now i thought this was Sad, well R.i.p TVR, what you guys think:idea:
Thanks from "http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/tvr-production-restart-shelved"
