The Internet has been abuzz with rumors about a possible comeback for now-defunct insanemobile manufacturer TVR since yesterday, and now, it looks like things are stirring. The company is reportedly headed back to British ownership where it belongs.
The UK's Autocar reports that rights to make TVR cars using existing designs and components have been sold to an unnamed British interest by their previous owner, Russian businessman Nikolai Smolensky.
The deal was reportedly completed a few weeks ago, and around the same time, a new company was incorporated in England with the name of TVR Motor Cars Ltd. Autocar is relatively vague on the details, but they do say "the transaction is understood to involve a company fronted by a Mr Les Edgar, a Surrey-based entrepreneur."
Very, very interesting. TVR spent decades making cars that were gorgeous as well as obscenely fast and difficult to drive. It's the brand that Jeremy Clarkson famously once said "built a car, put it on sale, and then found out how it handled – usually when one of their customers wrote to the factory complaining about how dead he was.”
But TVR spent most of the last decade incredibly troubled. Smolensky bought them in 2004, but closed the factory in 2006 amidst a number of financial problems. In 2012 he said that production would end permanently.
It's too early to say whether this news indicates a comeback for TVR, but I hope that things are headed in that direction. The world could use a taste of their particular brand of crazy once again.
Photo credit FurLined