will tvr ever return?

does anyone here know if tvr will ever come back to the US. i really would like to seem them come back as i hear, that they are the only ones who make a car only with manual, no ABS, no traction or stability control.

 

I sent a message to FK, he should reply soon. He has one in the US.

 

TVR was supposed to be back in the States by now but as you may know they have had many changes. I exchanged emails with Ben Samuelson(he is pretty high up in the company I believe but his title has changed a lot of the past year) for a few years and he basically told me that they needed a lot of capital in order to return to the states. Peter Wheeler, who was owner of TVR for many years and the man behind making TVR's look like no other car out there, sold the company to a young Russian Oligarch in the summer. Peter Wheeler is no longer involved with the company in any capacity is my understanding. So it will be interesting to see if TVR still has plans to come back to the states. The inline-6 they currently use on nearly all of their cars is very compllicated and it would cost a fortune to make it through U.S. emissions. Crash testing and airbag laws would cause changes to be made too. TVR still have many quality issues on all the cars they produce. The easiest way for TVR to come back to the states would be to incorporate an engine already produced for the American market. Quality would have to improve too. A dealer network would have to be set up and parts would have to be available to customers on short notice. Getting your TVR repaired in England can take a lot of time so I can only imagine how long it could take for parts to come over to the U.S. Our lemon laws are very tough compared to other countries too. That could scare off TVR. TVR had similar problems when the left the states over 20 years ago.

I do think that TVR could do everything I mentioned above but it really comes down to money. I am not sure if the new owner wants to spend the capital to do it. The latest plan for TVR is that they are only going to make one model car at a time and limit production to 500 for that specific model. After that then the car will not be carried over to the next year in the same exact form. Changes will be made but I doubt they will be too significant. If you want to read more about TVR I suggest you go here:

http://www.pistonheads.com/tvr/