Little Britain

Little comment here. The majority of people who own/drive TVRs will tell you that one of the attractive things about them is their Britishness. I'm no different, but I see the Britishness not as the components of the car, but at a much higher level - it's about the open top, 2 seats, front engine, rear wheel drive combination. Also, it's about the car being designed as a convertible 2 seater, not some crap saloon or GT with the top lopped off. It's a sports car. Not a supercar, not a GT, nothing in the middle, a sports car. 2 seats, no roof. It's in a long line of sports cars to come from Britain - ACs, MGs, Triumphs, Sunbeams, Austin Healeys, Lotuses, Morgans etc.

Now, in this, what separates me from some of the more jingoistic TVR owners is that I can see that my TVR is not all that British from a 'through and through' perspective. The engine, for example, designed by Buick before GM bought them. Granted, a massive amount of development has gone into it since the original all alloy 215ci V8 was conceived for the 1961 model year (which meant its roots are in the late 1950's), but essentially, it's an American V8. The gearbox that sits behind the V8 is made by Borg Warner, another American company. I think BTR (who make the diff) are Australian, but not certain so jury's out on that one. However, the bulk of the rest of the running gear is Ford, another American company. Now, I will concede that lots of the Ford bits that made it onto the various TVR models were made in Dagenham, Essex, UK, but Ford is an American company, simple as that. So basically, wherever you look in the TVR range going back to Wedges, S cars, Tamsins (I guess starting at pre-AJP engined cars), the backbone of what makes the car move/roll has been American. Clearly there are bits of the car that are TVR unique, but they are pretty few and far between. And there are bits of the car that are British e.g. most things Lucas, or with a Land Rover sticker on them (back when Land Rover wasn't Indian). There are also bits that are from other US manufacturers - the column switchgear on my car, for example is from some Vauxhall or other (Vauxhall being part of GM now).

In my view this mish mash of foreign and British componentry does not make the car any less 'British'. It's the format, not the running gear. It's the ethos, not the engine. It's where the product was conceived, put together and sold that counts overall for me. In much the same way that a Sunbeam Tiger is a British Sports car, my TVR is a British Sports Car.