It’d be easy to drop a spacecraft cliche on the TVR Tuscan. Admittedly alien in appearance, its unusual face peers curiously about our world, a buoyant form suggesting no particular tether to the ground below. Such UFO musings would be a disservice, however, for this little fella is entirely earthly; it’s from which dimension it crossed over that’s really at question.
Reckless in concept, bizarre in style, inadvertently violent in spirit, the Tuscan Speed Six seems comprehensively out of place and time. Specified with a comic irreverence for the usual Rules of Car and powered by a home-brewed, heaven-whispered straight-six howler that shouldn’t logically exist, the shed-built wonder brought an oblique 1960s vim to our modern realm. No safety, no assists, a steering ratio that’d make a Stratos look lazy and much the same reputation for wrapping VINs around trees — there’s no way this was built this millennium, nor in Britain as we know it.
And yet: orthodox timelines hold that the TVR Tuscan is a modern earthly sports car built in England (ours) between 1999 and 2006. Numbering just 1,677 produced before the factory floors fell silent under a new owner, it’s a tremendous rarity anywhere — let alone in Canada.
Don’t be ashamed if you aren’t familiar with the brand. A small workshop turned niche racecar builder, TVR (1946-2006) was a low-volume cottage-flavoured operation that built a reputation on chimaeric tube-backboned sports cars furnished with crate engines and off-the-shelf parts. The company endured perpetual financial crises and catastrophes, nevertheless scraping through its distinct generations with a rare core consistency in character, reputation, and endearingly optimistic bullshittery.
To set the tone, TVR was started by a fellow called Trevor. The fruits of this unserious contraction garnered a loyal following, and it would be customers who picked up the tatters at points of struggle in 1965 and again in ‘81. The latter of these: Peter Wheeler, an eccentric 6’6 petrochemical engineer under whose tenure the outfit reached its zaniest distinction and greatest success. An enthusiastic vintage racer in his off hours, this one meddling character single-handedly dictated many of the madcap traits that make these cars so obtusely special.
Modern era or not, this direction carried a very 1960s sort of bluster-backed brilliance. TVR obviously had to justify its eccentricity to prospective customers and media scribes, but one can’t help but smile at the claims. The Tuscan’s technological ‘omissions’ — and the supposed rationales behind each — optimistically emphasize driving purity at best, and obdurately misunderstand contemporary safety research at worst. A softball interview back in the day reports Wheeler expressing such concerns as airbags potentially pushing occupants up out of open-topped cars, which… okay fella. You can almost hear the old-timey radio-announcer voice in the original release. Take that with your asbestos seltzer and you’re sure to keep the doctors away.
“If TVR ever had accountants in positions of authority, they would make sure that… a car like the new Tuscan would never make it off the drawing board.”
TVR press materials, 1999 London Motor Show
Obtuse, but his out-of-place method arced the TVR of the 1990s into an upswing. The success of the stout, Rover-powered Griffith had the Blackpool workshops churning at pace, and by the mid 90s Wheeler had visions of distinction for the brand. Though a move from Ford V6s to Rover V8s had dialled up the cars’ potency, he thought it time to bring powertrains entirely in-house.
His path: a freelance engineer who’d developed engines for high-revving motorbikes — and even an F1 platform.
Their answer: an all-original, all-aluminum series of dry-sump engines known as the AJPs, marketed as the ‘Speed’ engines. Explored variously as a V8 and famously as a 7.7-litre record-targeting V12, Blackpool settled on a smooth-running ‘Speed Six’ naturally aspirated inline mill for series production. Blueprinted toward 400 horses before production adjustments and detune, this race-strung 24-valve was a truly impressive engine for its time.
“Reckless recalcitrance bred one of the most soulful engines our world has ever enjoyed.”
Impressive, but it would be charitable to call this ‘bold’ of Wheeler’s TVR when irresponsible seems so much more apt an adjective. Even compromising by slimming the more costly and complex V8 into an I6, to undertake an engine development program in any form was a tremendous expenditure for an independent manufacturer, let alone a leaky-roofed operation like TVR. Sure the ‘90s and ‘00s were an anything-goes era for the niche crowd, but this 1920s-bespoke strategy in a 1990s industry ran singular.
What’s more, Wheeler had purchased the company as it was sinking, just as his predecessor had done. But while he found it a stronger footing than any of his forebears, it wasn’t 1950 anymore: you couldn’t just throw a rough casting together and call it a day. Modern engines and expectations had grown much more complex than those cast-iron wood-stove days of yore, and even in the case of obsessive programs like the McLaren F1 or Pagani Zonda, boutique contemporaries measured costs and capacities and consistently saw the prudence in outsourcing power to the likes of BMW and AMG.
By any earthly rule of business, there is thus no truly credible reason for the TVR ‘Speed Six’ to have been commissioned — or for the company to have survived to realize it.
And yet: such reckless recalcitrance bred one of the most soulful engines our world has ever enjoyed.
“TVR is irrationally proud… that there are probably more employees per car produced here than there is anywhere else.”
TVR
The TVR Speed Six came in a few stroke-selected flavours, but the unit fitted to this 2003 Tuscan is the one that matters. Thrashing a thunderous four litres, each of its oversquare chambers compress 11.8 airs down to one. This naturally aspirated delight inhales through one fuel-injected throttle body per cylinder, with no forced induction to cheat its way to that tall combustion pressure. Revving out to 7,000 rpm before cut-off, TVR’s modified configuration ultimately produced 360 horsepower and 310 pound-feet of torque — all organically, all to the rear wheels, and all without tractive temperance.
Stand downwind at startup and the shotgun-bored tailpipes throw the turbulent atmospheric disruption of a large V8. Fuel-rich from idle, it’s every bit as romantically aromatic as any carbureted classic. Long, cylindrically sheathed pipes peek upward from beneath; lacking any outboard hangars, they shake, wobble, and were one to guess from inside the cockpit, probably tense upward like biceps on roll-out revs.
Hewn to the smoothness of a straight six, however, there’s an out-of-place refinement to the 4.0’s girthy churn. There’s something throbby, thumpy, and cammy here — but without the engine-mount ugga-dugga that you’d expect of something more potato.
That pitlane-pitched idle is one to savour, lest you load up such a racey engine before it gets to temperature. No trouble there though, for there’s a good bit to get settled into first.
For starters, there’s seat positioning. Forward-back are the usual, then a velcro-removable bottom cushion selects height and comfort (or helmet clearance). Next is lumbar pressure, its inflation managed by a rubber squeeze bulb dangling at the end of some fuel line flopped forward against the centre tunnel. I opt to pull the squab from between the thigh cushions for a lower driving position and deflate the fogies’ scoliosis support.
Next is familiarization with the Tuscan’s unconventional cabin controls. TVR called its interior “minimalist,” which is a curious use of otherwise well-understood language. Minimal only in its lack of control labels (good luck finding the unintuitively placed door buttons in either generation), the Tuscan makes an identifiably Y2K occasion of most every cabin surface, its globular leather forms accented with functional and decorative brightwork of several sorts.
Machined aluminum accent panels back milled brass switchgear. The home-brewed instrument cluster is faced in brass, with a full-width speedometer that bumps like the second hand on an old watch. Instead of typical smooth-fanning rheostats to actuate its gauge needles, stepper motors dramatically notch the speedo in two-mph increments; below this, two more steppers tug at aperture-cut aluminum discs to reveal the shadowboxed temperature and fuel markings behind. The teapot is your oil-warning lamp. A novel liquid-crystal display can be configured to display two-digit engine speed or sundry ancillary readouts, and floating atop all of it, a leather-wrapped hood mounts an LED shift indicator to tell you to stop compressing 11.8 airs to one at 7,000 rpm. No proper tach; just play it by ear.
Window knobs flank the aluminum-topped shifter. Tick, tick, just like the gauges — each notch of the knob equals a measured step in window height. You’ll want them down to make the most of the howls to come, not to mention bleeding that tunnel heat — just don’t even think about reeling that knob back the other way before it’s finished your initial request. It’s a simple creature, okay? Be patient: it’s doing its best.
Lights on, operating temperature reached, time to meet a hero.
All that gnarly cold-start buildup, all the diddle of that under-mirror fingering in search of the concealed door button — only for it to roll off the clutch without a squinch of drama. The Tuscan tiptoes onto 6-AM streets entirely inoffensively: clear visibility all around, decent mirrors, intuitive proportions despite its odd curves, and even a vaguely sympathetic ride. It’s a sweet little pea to get acquainted with as I find my way out of town.
“This is what all those BMW bros think their straight sixes sound like.”
Driving Videographer Clayton Seams
Eventually the roads ruralize, quieten. Pulled to speed from a stop: great googly moogly, what in the throng-eyed critterdom is happening? Are straight sixes allowed to sound like this? From that first pull, what’s possible to experience of a car changes.
It isn’t just the naturally aspirated build, nor the ITBs’ esophageal earnest beneath that bolted-shut bonnet. There’s a theatre about it, rich in the midrange and piercing as it puckers toward the top. It’s self-assured in utter indifference to or perhaps even cognisance of environs, expressive without evincing some gauche itch for attention.
The Tuscan’s bark rolls and echoes back across the morning’s glimmering farmlands, the sun barely cresting to dry dewdrops from the roads. I’m surely waking folks at this hour; sorry, neighbours. I feel bad about the disturbance, but it’d be wrong not to knead this out and get properly acquainted. Damp tarmac, rolling fields: piloting from the right seat, there’s even a moment’s temptation to embrace the Britain of the scene and cross over to drive on the left — just for a taste, of course.
That dew brings a certain precarity, granted. Whether for purity and safety or simply because such systems would’ve cost money to licence and integrate, there’s no traction control managing that limited-slip 3.73, nor ABS to steady an emergency stop. The Tuscan’s tube-frame backbone chassis is certainly rigid enough for racetrack survivability, but without airbags or crumple zones it would leave impact-energy absorption to my fleshy body. A paddock- rebuildable car then; maybe not a rebuildable Elle.
This in mind, the Tuscan fits an organic torque management system: an exceptionally long-travelling floor-hinged accelerator intended to interface with a respectful foot.
Sweeping across what must be some 70 degrees, the Tuscan’s mile of floor-hinged throttle modulation resolves even the narrowest of inputs. By this, the Tuscan affords unusually fine control of its butterflies and precise management of their tail-wiggling potential, and all with the satisfaction of burying the right foot deeper than in anything before. There’s still a deep chaos to it, and with that, a ticklish propensity for violence — but so too is there a kindly honesty in the tools it gives you to manage its Z-axis reputation.
Whereas throttle trims the tailplanes with measure, steering inputs are drawn incredibly taut: these early Tuscans steer just 1.7 turns lock-to-lock. Though later-series cars returned to a standard 2.2 for more leisurely touring, these early units tug eagerly, even anxiously. It’s incredibly direct, the smallest inputs darting the nose on such a knife-edge that babysitting along straight stretches sometimes feels a minor task to keep the fronts out of invisible tramlines.
Booted, such sharp control turns to what must be a NORAD-trackable thrill. Splitting its lean 1,100 kilos across a short wheelbase in a tidy 51-49 weight distribution, such immediate input animates a very stable mass into lively tire-planting rolls — not to mention the pedals’ prompts into immersive pitches and dives. The manic steering accelerates the sense of speed even at the low end, necessitating more attention but rewarding in active engagement with the car.
Comparably direct is the shift action. The Tuscan achieves its poise without a transaxle setup, so the knob atop the tunnel drops straight down into a chunky ‘ol Tremec T5. It’s more Mustang than NSX, but the experience is nevertheless welcomely hand-tool. The aluminum ball twists and rumbles and heat-soaks right there in your hand, forks reading right into your palm. There’s no need for a trans temp indicator here either: work it for a while and it’ll tell you.
Body motion is managed by endearingly rudimentary double wishbones at all four corners. Smacked onto each extremity of the tube backbone chassis, these appendages are so simple that camber adjustments are managed by sliding an upper ball joint around, then pinching it in place with nearby bolts.
Fortunately, these shortcuts and resultant problems haven’t forsaken the cars. Just as with many of the Speed Six’s compromised engine-production shortcuts, aftermarket shops have stepped in to offer more considered alternatives for long-term TVR ownership. Hardened finger followers, grown-up threaded control arms, and even new tube frames with proper cinch welds in place of the original kink-formed curves.
This community-fuelled support follows right on with tradition, particularly crucial after the company’s 2004 buyer broke the business into fragments and sank the ship within two years. One customer went so far as to purchase the original AJP-6 engine drawings from creator Al Melling to check TVR’s work, then to manufacture proper-spec or improved replacements to address the engines’ typical lubrication, cam, follower, valve-guide, and conrod problems — before selling that business on to another enthusiast.
Whether TVR’s 2006 demise was down to mismanagement or perhaps a covert action to protect humanity from some rippling portal found in the Blackpool shop’s basement, Driving can only speculate. Whatever it is that he saw inside, that fourth owner eventually reconsolidated and sold the business (supposedly after being kicked in the shins by an irate child). The fifth owner claims to be taking deposits on a new model, but it seems vapour for now.
The Tuscan’s orphaned legacy and gnarly potential nevertheless yield an unexpectedly liveable, even daily-able sports car experience. Race-tune care considerations acknowledged and community wisdom abided, this surprisingly spacious tourer seems more approachable than its reputation might suggest. For this particular example’s part, the friend who lent it has been showing up at faraway events in it for years, always ‘for sale’ through his specialist dealership Eclection, but never with any apparent hurry to actually see it off.
It’s easy to understand why. Sound, steering, torque; this isn’t a driving experience you can buy in much anything else — let alone from just two-thirds the base price of a Porsche 911. Its 2000s-era peers may have seemed adventurous, but Noble, Mosler, Gumpert, take your pick: even the wildest weren’t scratch-building their own power. That this play brought us one of motoring’s most exciting engines is a blessing; all the more given the pursuit’s utter outlandishness.
A childhood hero for its fantastical design, a day alone in the series-one TVR Tuscan Speed Six only elevates its heroism as an adult. As a kid I wanted to draw it; as a grownup I want to be immature in it.
Despite every quip that 2003 is too young for me, that it’s too new to be a classic, the Tuscan is a milestone modern classic — an endorsement all the weightier because its existence so far from our North American frame of reference leaves for a relatively blank slate. With no prior firsthand (or even video-game) experience to set expectation or colour our time together, Speed-Six stupefaction hits entirely on merit. I was nervously prepared for it to turn out a an attention-pleading spot of trash, but the Tuscan paradigmatically realigns awareness of what a straight six — what a ‘modern’ sports car — can be.
“The constraints of conventional industry thinking have not been an issue”
TVR, 1999
The TVR Tuscan’s aesthetic radicalism is manifest in its architecture and drive. Fey by the full breadth of connotations, it’s absolutely Car as we’ve understood for 60-odd years — yet it seems variously out-of-place in any of those decades’ motoring. Too modern, too classic, too esoteric, too messy, too indulgent, too much.
The Tuscan reads unnaturally and illogically, so outside established wisdom as to flag whether the car actually knows where or when it is — or even the ‘what’ of its nevertheless self-assured taxonomy. You almost can’t fault it for breaking rules if you accept that it probably doesn’t even know what those are.
Beholden only to itself then, the Tuscan Speed Six seems best approached as a playful, well-intentioned creature spat generously from the Blackpool rift.
Alien? Doubtful. Extradimensional? Probably. Sentient? Quite plausibly, if just enough to be utterly baffled by the experience of existence.
I hope the lil’ guy’s doing okay. Someone really ought to check out that basement though.
