TVR Tuscan which is now for sale ...

 Following on from my previous blog about my brothers new toy . This is about his outgoing one . The TVR Tuscan . This model has had a full engine rebuild and a straight through stainless exhaust system fitted . It makes lots of popping noises on the overun , which puts a smile on your face , even as a passenger !!! And it also makes people aware that you are coming , so that the don't step out onto the road . If they did , they would either have to be stupid or deaf .

He had had several models of TVR prior to getting this one . And i have been in all of them . I can say that this is by far my favorite . It is very quirky in many ways . For instance , you have a button to press under the door mirror to open the door !! This also drops the window a few inches , to allow the door to open . Even quirkier is that you have to push a button next to the stereo unit to open the doors to get out . I felt a right idiot looking for the door handle , only to see big brother push a shiny button and the door pops open . You can remove the roof ( not unusual ) you can also remove the rear window as well !! I know in a Land Rover you can remove the front screen on older models . But that just fills your teeth with dead flies !!! He did find to his dismay that the rear window decided to pop out all of it's own doing , while driving along the road !!! And yes , it smashed into small bits :-(

One thing that TVR's need is a good engine rebuild after a certain mileage . When he purchased this one . He was told by the owner that the engine had had a rebuild and was spot on . Never take someone who is selling a vehicle by their word !!! He was a lying so and so and the engine was showing signs of oil leaks and other issues . Big brother decided to take the plunge and spend a good few thousand pound and get the engine stripped and rebuilt . But this time to a higher BHP and with much stronger internal parts than had been fitted at the factory . If you know a bit about these vehicles it's a known fact on the earlier models they used parts from many other vehicles to finish off the cars . For example , Ford Cortina , Ford Granada switches , wiper motors, electric window motors etc !! You would have to enter your chassis number into the system to see which vehicles they had bastardised on the Friday afternoon that your one had been built .

This is the main spec of the car after it had it's engine tweeks and a few other bits -

Rebored to  4.3 litre, 430bhp, 397lb/ft of torque which is more than standard 4.0 litre, 360bhp, 310 lb/ft. TVR's figures were always optimistic and probably gained from an engine on the test bench without an alternator, water pump etc and achieved right before it went pop. These  figures are from a dyno so accurate.

The car weighs in at 1050kg giving a power to weight ratio of 410bhp/tonne and if  he  didn't love his (upgraded, racing) clutch, 0-60 of around 3.5 seconds. For the rebuild the engine was bored out and fitted with new liners. Pistons, rods, crank....all moving parts were replaced with better quality items as were the injectors (originals couldn't provide enough fuel) and the ECU remapped. Suspension upgraded. Catalytic convertors removed and silencers sleeved to give straight through flow. Pop, bang burble burble.

 

When i went to assist with moving his new aeroplane , he took me out for a wee spin ;-0 And to get some photos for him to advertise this beast for sale . We were lucky that the evening sun was amazing but we couldn't find a good vantage point to make use of the warm evening sun . However we did find the edge of a nice cornfield that had recently been harvested . And as luck would have it the warm light wasn't to bad for taking the pics .

 

Below are some images of the car . Yes i have photoshoped them and more than i would normally . But i am just playing with the Dodge and Burn tools and am quite liking the results .

 

 The quirky interior . All the brass coloured knobs and dials you see are not marked as to what they do . So as a new owner it's part of the fun , finding out what's what .

 Couple at bottom are the same image with different  tweaks . The lower one is slightly de-daturated .Which i think works quite well on this .

 

If you are interested in purchasing something that will put a smile on your face have a look here for more details of the sale .

 

Hope you have enjoyed reading this blog .
View more of my images on my website http://www.eternityimages.co.uk/Home.aspx

 

Many thanks Mark.