the rapidly sinking british car industry

[1300dolly]

Scott starting saving your pennies to save them...<br>
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Justyn

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[Carsreunited]

When you are only shifting 2 cars a week with 300 staff and 500k rent per year, something has to give. <br>
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Personally I think they have too many cars that do a similar job and have been flogging a dead horse with the Speed 6 engine.<br>
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When a 10 year old, 4 seater TVR is dusting brand new models at Santa Pod, why would you want to spend 55k on a new one when 12k can get you better performance?<br>
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You have to feel for the workers though. They were expecting great things when the rich kid took over...<br>
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[Silvery]

I think they lost it when they watered down the prototype Speed 12.<br>
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I saw it (or a mockup, not sure) once at a show when they were grabbing headlines with it - Truly stunning, and if the original performance claims were true, absolutely mind numbingly nerve shatteringly fast.

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[alun n]

...not forgetting your standard British worker who now wants minimum £30k in his back pocket in return for finding reasons not to do what he is employed and paid to do...or at least moaning about it as he does it.<!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :| --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/indifferent.gif ALT=":|"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br>
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[so pleased to only have one employee so far...who is seemingly uniquely dilligent, conscientious and pleased to do a days work!]

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[Carsreunited]

Was it this one Gary?<br>
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Seems to me from reading messages by TVR employees who are disseminating the 'inside line' that a real 'them and us' situation has arisen between management and shopfloor. Nothing suprising there. But, at one point they worked together so what has caused the present apathy?<br>
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[1300dolly]

the russian muti trillionaire owner maybe??<br>
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Justyn

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[Silvery]

Can't be sure - That one doesn't elicit the same response of "Bugger me, it's the bloody Batmobile" as the one I saw, but a set of wheels and good polish might help!

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[tinweevil]

They need to stop pissing money away on motorsport by trying to do it on the cheap. Put some proper money into Le Mans and win their class on Sunday and they really will sell on Monday. <br>
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Tinweevil

<p>1978 <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.triumphowners.com/704">Dolomite Sprint</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>
1972 <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.triumphowners.com/754">Spitfire IV</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>
1968 <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.triumphowners.com/705">GT6 II</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>
1973 <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.triumphowners.com/755">Dolomite Sprint</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>
1980 <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.triumphowners.com/864">Dolomite 1500HL</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>
39 anorak points on the Nicholas scale<br>
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[Carsreunited]

It's all privateer stuff now. There is no factory motorsport effort (AFAIK). But, yes, I take your point. If they want to play with p[otential owners with 55k in their pocket, they need to be competing with the big factories and humiliating them. It's the British under-dog mentality.<br>
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[mbellinger]

Lots of things whizzing around my head about this.<br>
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You will have seen by now the inevitable second announcement (after the one about lay-offs) saying that the factory is closing and they are looking for "a new location for assembly". Yeah, right.<br>
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TVR have of course been here before (a couple of times). The last time (early 1980's) their way out of the mire was product led by the then new wedge cars.<br>
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Now, as Scott says, they seem to produce six different cars which all do the same thing. That is madness. They should concentrate on a budget model (£25-30K) and a flagship model (say £50K), and dump the rest. Their cars are great looking, sound superb, and go well. However they are well behind on safety (ABS anyone?, airbags?), and go wrong. A lot. <br>
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Peter Wheelers arrogance that safety was "tat" that no one was interested in has no place in the modern world. Similarly with his oft aired views on customers being devlopment guinea pigs. TVR of course has a loyal core following, like all niche manufacturers. But to survive and succeed, it needed to attract new customers, not just the same old few friends. The Russian at least realised this and one of the first things he did was to introduce a warranty, which is vital if a marque like TVR is to make any headway.<br>
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Wheeler is exposed now as the money grabber he is by selling out when he could see the writing on the wall and knew full well that horrid decisions or meltdown or both were coming.<br>
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Rationalise the range drastically. Keep the perceived quality and value up. If necessary yes, manufacture some of the sub-assemblies abroad where it is cheaper to do so, and then assemble here in UK. Make the thing sellable in all overseas markets (Swiss drive by noise regs, US emissions regs, etc) rather than doing a Wheeler and saying other markets can fook off.<br>
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That is the only way. But it may be too late......

<p>Martin<br>
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1968 Triumph 1300FWD<br>
2002 BMW 320d<br>
2002 Renault Scenic<br>
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[Jon Tilson]

Peter Wheeler wasnt all bad...<br>
He did save the place and his own single minded vision produced some world beating product. I still lust after a griff 500....one day I'll own one.<br>
I'm not sure he left when the writing was on the wall either...he just wanted to retire. <br>
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But yes sales have always been hampered by reliability and quality issues. Something that Morgan seems to understand....rare in the UK. People like Jensen. Aston Martin and Lotus clearly dont either. Mind you I'm not sure that the Italians do either but one of the nice things about owning an NSX is that you could always rely on it...so I'm told.<br>
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I think the name will just vanish now. Just another historical motoring curiosity. Lets face it in these energy expensive speed bumped pollitically correct anti car taced to death and heavy traffic everywhere days the ownership experience must just become more and more frustrating and those willing to put their money down will get fewer and fewer.<br>
Most TVR owners dont have a clean licence and while I personally have absolutley no problem and would even encourage the concept of batting down a deserted dual carriageway at 3 figure speeds or racing an evo 6 away from the lights and oh dear I'm doing speed limit x 3 behaviour, we just have to accept that society and law enforcement idiots like that nutter who is the chief constable for n wales will make it worse all the time and sympathy for those who dont agree will continue to diminish. Easy prey for the saftey brigade...damn them all.<br>
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Oh dear I'm ranting again...sorry...<br>
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Anyway...its good to have lived when we did but I think the days of TVR and its like are passing...sadly like the concorde. We will not see their kind again.<br>
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Jonners<br>
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[george]

might be reliable if you get the larger engined one but £700 <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :eek --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/eek.gif ALT=":eek"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> for a clutch is a bit ott the last porsche i did was less than £400 but not much <br>
but it's a good easy driver as a supercar one you can ..<br>
use every day and far prettier than a 911 <br>
my buddys friend has just got another tvr he's had loads of them (and a grif 500 a mental car that would wheel spin at the sligtest press of the gas pedal) the last one he had was one used on the tvr challange? the latest yes it's broken down it's in being fixed <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :lol --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/laugh.gif ALT=":lol"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br>


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[Carsreunited]

The Griff 500 is very nice. If its an ex TVRCC car then I would imagine it has had a little extra in the oompth dept! A cerbera clutch is £500 parts and £500 fitting BTW. They reckon on a clutch every 20k miles!<br>
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[Jon Tilson]

You just can't clain a car is well engineered if it takes 500 quid labour to change a clutch and even less so if it lasts 20k miles. WIh those kind of numbers TVR just cant reach a sustainable market....crap product will only be tolerated so long. The kind of people that buy them will just buy 645 bee ems instead. No shortage of them in canary wharf car parks. TVR's are getting very thin. People talk and the wheeler dealers just wont put up with that sort of reliability.<br>
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Okay it leads a hard life with 400 bhp to put down but last time I looked a calloway corvette was doing similar bhp figures...so does a supra or fairladie too and they dont seem to have that much trouble with those kind of components. Or maybe the owners keep quite about it.<br>
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Supercharger X300 or XJ12 6 litre would be my choice of affordable powerhouse and low running costs..the only non british bit about them is the ford development money. Proves it can be done properly. <br>
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Jonners

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[george]

there is callaway vette out there thats a claimed 250mph and whithout a roof pity i cant rember the model cab callaways finest ? most certainly his fastest<br>
and what about the vector w8 a supercar that can go into your local gm dealer for service

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