TVR The Early Years Volume One

TVR today is a name associated with sensational, high-performance and sometimes quite unusual sports cars. So maybe it's not surprising that the story of the marque's early years is not just fascinating but really quite incredible. While most TVRs performed well for their day, behind the scenes was an extraordinary scenario riddled with constant struggles, money shortages, company collapses and relentless roller-coaster fortunes. Although TVR's founder Trevor Wilkinson was a modest, unassuming man, many big personalities and eccentric characters were drawn into the Blackpool sports car cauldron for one reason or another. Consequently, humour was never in short supply. It started almost from day one with a rolling chassis test going badly wrong and resulting in some builders falling backwards off their bench right into the hole they'd been digging! The remarkable TVR story wouldn't be the same without anecdotes like that, and liberal helpings of them are included here. This book covers in carefully researched detail and always entertaining style the pioneering early days in the late 1940s through to the calamitous company collapse at the end of 1965. All the TVR models of that period are covered in depth (along with Ray Saidel’s American Jomar connection), from Trevor Wilkinson's first specials to the ferociously fast Griffith V8s which were given their engines in the USA. And all are generously illustrated. Having spent much time in the mid-1970s with Trevor and his key associates, Jack Pickard, Stan Kilcoyne and Bernard Williams, during the research and preparation of his first TVR history, Success Against The Odds, Peter Filby is the ideal author for The Early Years. Like so many other TVR owners and enthusiasts, he is pretty much addicted to the Blackpool sports car breed. Yes, its history really is that extraordinary and amazing.