TVR is safe in my hands, says new boss
Smolenski's grand plans were unveiled this week
TVR is safe in my hands, is the message coming from new TVR boss Nikolai Smolenski. In an extensive interview in this week's Autocar, the man, described by interviewer Steve Cropley as 'quite friendly but very reserved' as well as being media-shy, said he was into TVR for the long term. He expects to be able to hand it on to his children.
A keen TVR enthusiast for years, Smolenski's core strategy to recover TVR's finances is to sell more cars. He wants to ramp up production from its current level of around 1,000 to 2,000. According to the interview, he wants to make 40 cars a week, which is more than it's ever made before, and which could, commented Cropley, strain the 22-strong dealer network. The product strategy is interesting though: each car will be made in batches of 500 and then be replaced, said Smolenski -- although this suggests that there will be four new models developed every year -- a tad hyper-active for a builder of TVR's size, perhaps. We'll try and get some clarification and report back.
Where will all those cars go? According to the piece, to export. New models will be built to pass international type-approvals, and be sold into Russia, the US and eastern Europe. According to Smolenski, there are plenty of people rich enough to buy them.
In terms of the current models, after the Tamora and T350 have reached their 500 quota, they'll be replaced -- each has about 100 to go. And when the successors to the Sagaris, Typhon and MKII (was the Tuscan 2) have completed their runs, they'll be replaced by new models of Smolenski's own conception, which he hints won't use the traditional TVR method of draping a fibreglass body over a steel backbone chassis.
Future projects also include a sequential gearbox.
Blackpool will remain TVR's home -- in fact, Smolenski said that he wants to source more components from the UK than today with the aim of being able to say that the cars are entirely British, and is allegedly terminating contracts with overseas suppliers. And as we've already reported, quality control is to be high on the priority list.
Well I don't think a steel body draped over a fibreglass chassis will work? 
Pies said:
I'm reading this and starting to think TVR's are going to get quite pricey pretty quick 
My thoughts exactly. He's right to do it from the financial viewpoint I suppose but they will have to work hard to prevent the brand turning into just another supercar manufacturer.
I think one of the appeals of TVR was that the average man (like me) could just about realistically aspire to owning and running one.
V8 Archie said:
they'll be replaced by new models of Smolenski's own conception, which he hints won't use the traditional TVR method of draping a fiberglass body over a steel backbone chassis. I wonder what that means. Surely not a humungous metal barge.
Or something along the lines of the Mk2 Cerbera Speed 12 - a (non-backbone style) hybrid aluminium honeycomb and tubular steel chassis with carbon fibre bodywork.
Pies said:Which will make pre-Smolenski TVRs more valuable and more sought after?
I'm reading this and starting to think TVR's are going to get quite pricey pretty quick
TVR production did reach 42 cars a week during the heyday of the Chimaera and Griffith so the current facility already has the production capacity. I think Mr Smolenski will find that what is 'planned' today might be very difficult to put into reality; I for one will be watching events unfold with interest.
Terminator said:
I'm reading this and starting to think TVR's are going to get quite pricey pretty quick
Which will make pre-Smolenski TVRs more valuable and more sought after?
TVR production did reach 42 cars a week during the heyday of the Chimaera and Griffith so the current facility already has the production capacity. I think Mr Smolenski will find that what is 'planned' today might be very difficult to put into reality; I for one will be watching events unfold with interest.
One of the changes was to be a new facility wasn't it?
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