TVR

TVR

TVR

TVR

The new TVR we were teased with earlier this week has now seen the light of day. TVR has returned to the Griffith name for this 500hp (373kW) rear-wheel drive V8 with a manual gearbox, a downforce-generating underbody, and as few driver aids as is possible to fit into a car and still meet European regulation approval.

We've already seen the chassis, a mix of steel tubes with composite panels (carbon fiber sandwiching an aluminum honeycomb) bonded on for stiffness. Now we know what the rest of the car looks like. That bright red body is also made from carbon fiber, which keeps the Griffith's weight nice and low. At just 2,756lbs (1,250kg), TVR met its power-to-weight target, and the Griffith will be a very quick car to 60mph (under four seconds). It will also exceed 200mph.

What's most surprising is how small it is. A Porsche 911 is a pretty small car in this part of the market, but it's more than 7 inches (185mm) longer, 2.1 inches (42mm) taller, and 1.6 inches wider (42mm) than the TVR. When you consider that, alongside the approach to driver aids—there's antilock braking and switchable traction control—it's almost as if the Griffith is the very opposite of most new cars we write about, which keep getting bigger, heavier, and more automated.

But this unfiltered driving experience isn't cheap. The first 500 Griffiths will be £90,000 ($118,900) launch editions, although after that it should be possible to spec a car for less than that. Then there's the fact that TVR still needs to finish building the innovative iStream factory. TVR says that should happen sometime in the second quarter 2018 and that production cars should reach customers early in 2019.

But the real bad news is that, just like the "old" TVR, there are no plans to bring the car here to the US, at least for the foreseeable future. Boo!

Listing image by TVR