TVR Typhon

TVR Typhon
The 3 TVR Typhons
Overview
Manufacturer	TVR
Production	2002-4 (3 road-legal cars produced)
Body and chassis
Class	Sports Car
Body style	2-door coupe
Layout	FR layout
Related	TVR T400R
Powertrain
Engine	4.0 L or 4.2 L TVR Speed Six I6
Transmission	5 speed manual 6 speed sequential

The TVR Typhon is a sports car produced by the British car manufacturer TVR in their factory in Blackpool between 2002 and 2004. It is the fastest production TVR ever built. (The earlier TVR Cerbera Speed 12 was never put into production.) Only three were ever built. All are currently in England.

In the late 1990s, Peter Wheeler began the project that would fulfil his ambition to see TVRs at Le Mans. An entirely new car was going to be needed. It would need to be built using modern composites, be more rigid than any previous TVR and designed for 200MPH on the Mulsanne Straight, to be stable and above all, to win.

And so began what started labelled as the TuscanR (TVR T400R) and finally resulted in the 200 MPH+ Typhon the fastest and most expensive production car in TVR's history.

There is often confusion over the naming of this project. While the project itself was focussed and singular, its naming was more typical of TVR. The car itself would be a steel tubular frame with full roll cage forming the backbone to a full carbon fibre monocoque. While larger than any previous road TVR, it would be lighter, stiffer and much stronger. New suspension designs were implemented and professional CAD design and aero testing ensured a shape that would be stable at 200MPH+.

It began life as the TuscanR (TVR T400R) (following the Tuscan racers (TVR Tuscan Challenge) that the cars were to replace). This was a two-seater, composite race/road car. There was one road car prototype built in 2001 which was displayed during its lifetime (it was cut up and destroyed) in two colours, purple and silver. The rear lights of this car differ from those that followed. The early TVR T400R racers had this design.

Between 2000 and 2004 TVR built a total of seven race cars and six or seven road cars. Of the latter, the 2001 prototype (since scrapped) had the TuscanR body but from 2002 the other cars were of T400R design. The road cars had no standard interior as these were specified by the customers.

Shortly after TVR built the two road-going prototypes (the homologation cars) the project name changed. Originally both badged as TuscanR, the FIA rules for Le Mans stipulated that there had to be two models so in 2002 the red car was rebranded as the T400R and the Fleetwood Brown car as the T440R (the latter with a 4.2L S6 opposed to the 4.0), named for the proposed BHP outputs of the models, and priced at £71,995 and £74,995 respectively. The road project would also offer a two-seater car with a long-range race tank or a 2+2 with a standard-sized (51L) tank.

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Wikipedia