TVR to Return to the Market in 2012

The English sports car producer TVR is making sustained efforts to prepare its comeback. As we reported, the company was supposed to introduce a new model (a roadster) at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. However, the plan didn’t become a reality as the automaker’s owner Nikolai Smolenski failed to reach a final agreement with the company that handled the vehicle’s development, as the Swiss car magazine Revue Automobile reports via Pistonheads.

In an interview for the aforementioned source, Smolenski said that the rebirth of the brand could take place in the spring of 2012.

The company’s new vehicle will use the MD-1 name and will be powered by the Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1’s 6.2 liter V8, which means that it will bring 638 hp to the game. The MD-1 uses the Tuscan convertible’s platform, but is slightly lower and wider. However, the vehicle will have its own personality, as it marks the start of a new era for TVR.

The company is expected to prepare a production of 250 units per year. The production of the MD-1 will be outsourced, with TVR potentially seeking a German partner.

"We have received offers from Jimmy Prize in South Africa and plenty of others from England. [...] I would naturally prefer to work with firms such as Caterham or Lotus, but it's unlikely that the former would be able to do it, and the latter wouldn't represent good value for money. But it's equally possible that I wouldn't go back to the UK at all, and could set myself up somewhere in Germany," Smolenski was quoted as saying by the aforementioned source.

However, the MD-1 isn’t the only project TVR is currently working on. The carmaker is also planning a three-seat MD-2 as well as a range-topping project, which will use the MD-3 name.