This Is The Fascinating Story Of How TVR Created Awesomeness From The Ground Up

Welcome to Sunday Matinee, where we highlight classic car reviews or other longer videos I find on YouTube. Kick back and enjoy this blast from the past.

This year, we officially and finally said goodbye to TVR, which for 65 years made some of the most insane sportscars ever to come out of Great Britain. The Russian businessman who bought them in the middle of the last decade threw in the towel in July to make TVR-branded wind turbines instead. There's no other word to describe that situation except "depressing."

But we'll always have memories of how awesome TVR was, thanks in part to this Top Gear special from 1997, towards the end of the brand's heyday and as they celebrated their 50th birthday. Hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Vicki Butler-Henderson and Tiff Needell trace TVR's humble beginnings in 1947 with the hodgepodge race cars built by Trevor Wilkinson.

Then they look at some of their nuttier offerings from the 1960s, including the Griffith, which they named after an American dude who stuffed a Ford V8 into one of their cars. How awesome is that? The hosts also test some of their latter-day offerings, including the Cerbera, which Clarkson called "the noisiest, most exciting, and fastest car this side of a Lamborghini Diablo."

Check out this three-part special, then tell us how much you miss TVR in the comments.

Videos credit ysivyboi1