You Can Legally Import One Of The Most Terrible – And Amazing – Sports Cars Ever Made

TVR is a small British automaker with a fairly long and complicated history. Between multiple owners and financial ups and downs, the fact that it has survived from the 1940s to the present day (and are currently busy working on a Mustang-powered sports car) is nothing short of incredible.

Related

Why The Mustang-Powered TVR Griffith Is Taking Longer To Arrive Than The Tesla Roadster 2.0

The new TVR Griffith has taken ten years so far to reach production, and it isn’t there yet. This is why the new vehicle is taking so long.

One of the many models released by TVR over the years is the Cerbera, which, like all TVRs, has built up a reputation for less-than-stellar reliability. However, if you’re mad about British sports cars and your idea of weekend fun is spending hours in a garage repairing your car, it’s good news for you. You can now get your hands on one of these in America – but is it a good idea? Here’s why you would quite likely want to spend as much time fixing this car as you would driving it.

Meet The British Corvette: Terrible, Yet Amazing

This wide-eyed sports car is the TVR Cerbera. A V8-powered model designed as a coupe that was both a grand tourer and also a sports car, it was produced for ten years between 1996 and 2006. The earliest examples of the Cerbera (from the first four model years) are over 25 years old, meaning they can be imported into the United States according to the 25-year rule. Another TVR, the Tuscan Speed Six, also falls into this category, if you’re mad enough to want an all-TVR garage.

One of the defining characteristics of the Cerbera was the “Speed Eight” V8 engine, which had been developed in-house, breaking the company’s habit of sourcing engines elsewhere. After BMW’s takeover of Rover, Peter Wheeler decided it was too risky to keep using Rover engines, in case BMW decided to discontinue them. Engineer Al Melling was given the task of designing an engine specifically for TVR: the result was the Speed Eight, a 75-degree V8 with a flat-plane crank, heavily inspired by the world of motorsport.

Three different variants of the Speed Eight were available to choose from: a 4.2-liter, a 4.5-liter and a 4.7-liter. Later on, TVR made an attempt at building an inline-six for the Cerbera, called the Speed Six, but this proved to be even more unreliable than the notoriously misbehaved Speed Eight, and the Cerbera Speed Six project was abandoned.

The Cerbera’s unusual layout has been referred to by the brand as a “3+1”, as it is a modified version of the traditional 2+2 layout (with smaller rear seats). The main difference lies in the fact that the front passenger seat can slide further forward than the driver’s, meaning the person sitting behind the front passenger has a little more room. In terms of design, the Cerbera was all about gentle, rounded lines, with circular headlights and an oval grille. The Cerbera also received a minor facelift in 2000, with the headlights being slightly modified to more closely resemble the Tuscan’s.

Soon after being released, the Cerbera began to develop a reputation for poor reliability and ease of use. As there was no internal door handle, passengers had to press a small button on the door’s side pocket to get the door open; the back seats were only really suitable as storage, since they were too small for most people to fit into. Nearly every component of the car was prone to failure, and the short warranty (only one year) was no help.

History Of The TVR Cerbera

The Cerbera was one of several new models introduced under the leadership of Peter Wheeler, who had bought the company in 1981 after owning a TVR and falling in love with the brand; the company remained under his ownership until 2004, when he sold it for around $17.6 million. The Cerbera was the third TVR model produced during the Wheeler period, after the Griffith and the Chimaera. It was first unveiled in 1993 at the London Motor Show; the name Cerbera was derived from Greek mythology (Cerberus, the mythical three-headed dog that guards the entrance of Hades).

Its arrival also brought about several “firsts” for TVR under Wheeler’s leadership. The Cerbera was the first car produced by the brand to have a hard top and a 2+2 seating layout, as both the Griffith and the Chimaera had been two-seater convertibles. It was also the first car powered by an engine that was built in-house, instead of being sourced by an external company such as Ford or Rover.

The Record-Breaker That Never Was: The Cerbera Speed 12

In 1996, just as the Cerbera was going into production, TVR made an appearance at the Birmingham Motor Show with an innovative Cerbera-based concept car: the Project 7/12. The name was derived from the displacement (7.73 liters) and number of cylinders (12) of the car’s engine, which had replaced the Cerbera’s original V8. This engine was derived from a familiar source: remember the Speed Six we mentioned earlier? Well, two of these grafted together formed the V12 that sat under the hood of the Project 7/12. The engine was paired with a six-speed manual gearbox.

Eventually, plans were drawn to turn the Project 7/12 concept into a production road car and a GT1 class endurance race car. The goal was to produce something faster than the McLaren F1, and TVR managed to get pretty close. The Project 7/12’s name was changed to Speed 12, and its design was reworked and finalized. The end result was a car that produced 880 hp, all sent to the rear wheels, while weighing just 2,200 pounds: less than a first-generation Mazda Miata. No traction control or ABS were around to keep all this power in check.

Related

The V12-Powered Supercar That Weighed As Much As A First-Gen Miata

When a racing driver says a car has too much power, it must be a pretty special machine. The TVR Cerbera Speed 12 was this car, and this is its story,

The Cerbera Speed 12 was, even by TVR standards, completely uncontrollable, which made it unsuitable as a road car; even boss Peter Wheeler agreed, after taking it out on a hair-raising test drive. This, along with changing GT1 racing regulations which killed the Speed 12’s motorsport career before it even started, contributed to the project’s eventual demise. Today, only one of the three Cerbera Speed 12 cars built survives.

A Brief History Of The Company That Gave Us The Cerbera

TVR’s name derives from that of its founder, Trevor Wilkinson, who started the company under the name “Trevcar Motors” in 1946. During its first three years of existence, the company did not produce its own vehicles, but simply service cars and trucks. Eventually, the company’s name was shortened to TVR, and in 1949 the first original cars arrived. These were one-off creations, named TVR One, Two, and Three. The company expanded in the early 1950s with the setup of a production line: the TVR Sports Saloon arrived in 1953, and subsequent low-production models were built throughout the following decade.

In 1965, TVR collapsed and was bought by Arthur Lilley and his son Martin, who restarted the company under the name TVR Engineering. During this period, the Lilleys invested heavily in getting the business back off the ground, introducing several new models such as the Tuscan V8, the Vixen, and the Tasmin.

After the Lilleys sold the company in 1981, TVR went through three subsequent owners: the first was Peter Wheeler, who oversaw the development of the Cerbera among other models. Wheeler, who had a background in chemical engineering, owned TVR for 23 years; under his leadership a large number of models were introduced, with fresh new designs. Some cars from this era include the Chimaera, Tamora, and Typhon.

Related

7 Of The Craziest TVRs Ever Built

Like AC Cobras, but nuttier.

The next owner was Nikolay Smolensky, who acquired TVR in 2004; the following period was fairly turbulent for the company, which went through layoffs, a move to facilities in Italy (with the exception of engine production, which remained in the UK), and a split into several different smaller companies. However, TVR managed to pull through, and in 2013 the brand was taken over by business partners Les Edgar and John Chasey.

The latest incarnation of TVR brought back the historical Griffith name, with design contributions from Gordon Murray and a Ford V8 engine (modified by another British firm, Cosworth). The new Griffith was launched at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2017; production was then delayed several times, with the latest reported start date being 2024; however, multiple roadblocks have prevented the Griffith from hitting a production line just yet.

Sources: TVR, TVR Car Club