TVR Car Club Back Home Event 2006

On 15th & 16th July 2006, the Ride Drive team supported the TVR Car Club at Blackpool for the Back Home event. We were there to promote our performance car advanced driver training sessions to attending TVR sports car owners. There was the opportunity to take a tour of the TVR Factory at Bristol Road for the last time before it closed.

Let’s be honest, there is nothing glamorous or classy about Blackpool. In fact, the reverse is more true. Blackpool probably represents everything that you can think of as being distasteful about British seaside resorts.

Whilst it has a greasy chip shop persona, at the time of writing, Blackpool was actually home to the factory that produced some of the most beautiful sports cars in the world, TVR.

The Back Home event, as it was called, was the TVR Car Club’s annual Blackpool gathering of TVR sports cars, and where owners from the world over would flock to the birthplace of their car to gather and to chat and to play for the weekend. For those who are lucky enough, a tour of the factory was available too.

Last Year of TVR in Blackpool

The 2006 Back Home event was seen as being that bit special, as this was the last year the TVR sports car company would be a Bristol Road. The decision to move to different premises had come about as a result of a change in company ownership, from Peter Wheeler to the young Russian businessman, Nikolai Smolenski.

After collecting a Volkswagen Touran from a car hire company in Aylesbury, and loading it up with all the exhibition gear, I set off across country to Evesham to collect Bob Young.

With the car loaded up almost to the hilt there came a bit of a juggling act to get Bob’s overnight bag AND all our freshly ironed corporate clothing into the car. However, we still had to get Bob Partridge with partner Wendy in too.

En Route From One Bob to Another

A quick squirt up the M5 motorway to Junction 4, and then off towards Bromsgrove, took us to Bob and Wendy’s place, which is in a village called Lickey End.

Bob Partidge is a bit shy about revealing where he lives. He isn’t entirely comfortable with announcing the name of his home area in refined social circles through fear he may be mistaken for making an inappropriate suggestion!

Believe it or not, Wendy only had one suitcase, which shut Bob Young up straight away. He had been speculating he would see a whole luggage set coming out of that front door. Something about women and going on holiday was mentioned as I seem to recall. Even so, I could forget the prospect of getting any view from the internal mirror of that car, not with all the stuff in there. It was just as well Bob Young was wrong about Wendy.

The M6 Motorway was a Nightmare

It is fair to say the journey to Blackpool on that Friday afternoon was hell. The M5 and M6 motorways were very often at a standstill, and of course, the journey was made even longer by the fact Bob Young would have to keep drinking gallons of cola. The result was he wanted to keep stopping for the loo. He was informed of his error, but this made no difference.

Having arrived at the hotel, and sunk a couple of cold pints of Stella Act–a–Twit, we eventually located Scotty (Ray Scott), who incidentally had not met any of us before, and we had not ever seen him.

Even though we were in close proximity to him, because he had decided not to switch on his mobile phone, attempts to make contact by that means were found to be useless! It was only by chance that I spoke to the lonely looking bloke sitting at a table by himself that I had inadvertently managed to find him.

Plans to be Made for the Following Day

After dinner, discussion took place concerning plans for the Saturday (exhibition day) and it was first agreed we should set out at 6.00am. Having then picked Bob Young up off the floor, he being stunned by the suggestion of what he called an antisocial start time, we turned in for the night to try and get some rest.

I was sharing a room with Bob, but the trouble was, he would not stop nattering. Being an ex-employee with the same people I used to work for, and then transferring to another region, he kept coming up with names. "Do you remember so and so, and what about him?" I reckon that was about 2am before he talked himself to sleep.

Setting up Shop on The Seafront

Next morning, with bright blue skies and the promise of a hot day, we set off for the seafront and the promenade. Our stand was next to TVR power, opposite a strange Blackpool phenomena, the jumping lamp post. This mystical monolith claimed two victims that morning, as two vehicles crashed into it before lunch. Everyone present said they definitely saw it move by itself on both occasions.

Well this is where it started, or rather where Young started. It began with a subtle suggestion that all was not right in his tummy, he not having had chance to eat before setting out. This was only the warm up, as before long he was in full flight, moaning and complaining about just about everything.

He even started arguing with Partridge about a potential customers, and who out of the two of them would cover what area. The contest seemed to be over who lived the closest to the particular region and so who would lay claim to jobs on the Warwickshire⁄Worcestershire borders. It was perhaps a bad idea to bring two of the team from neighbouring districts.

Michael Smith Arrived from North London to Make Five

We were later joined by Mike Smith, another member of the Ride Drive team, who had driven up from North London, and then another arrived, Janet Mc Pherson, who popped over from Ramsbottom.

It was a busy day, with more TVR’s attending than you could shake a stick at, all lining the promenade. Throngs of people, many of whom were previous customers, came along to once again recount with us the fantastic time they had during their Ride Drive advanced driving session in their TVR sports cars.

At the end of a hot day, and whilst packing up the gear, we found we had taken on some unexpected and unsolicited help in the form of a young lad on a bike. He proclaimed he knew how to fold up the gazebo in a better way than we were doing it. Packing away a Gazebo is something that Scotty, Young and Partridge were having a problem understanding. However, after the job was done, our voluntary helper jumped astride his pedal cycle and rode off towards the tower, never to be seen again.

Back at the hotel, and after a couple of beers, Young began lamenting about the 12–hour shift he had just been ‘forced’ to work. Were we to ever hear the end of this? He was still on about it the next morning as we made our way to Bristol Avenue and to the TVR factory.

Sunday – A Tour of The TVR Factory

It had been our intention to mingle with the crowds queuing to get in for a factory tour and try to generate interest in our services. However, after a pleading sort of word or three with the ladies at the gate, all six of us got in.

That was interesting, seeing how a TVR started its life from a few lengths of tubular steel, right through to the finished sports car.

What immediately became apparent to me, having seen the craftsmanship and labour that went into making the cars, was the cars were being sold too cheaply.

At the time you could buy a top of the range TVR sports car for £38,000. For your money you would get a totally hand–built car from the first cut of a steel tube, right through to when you could took delivery. There was not one single part of that production process that was automated.

Every TVR Sports Car Built Was Unique

Our guide, and TVR production worker, explained that each car was unique. To qualify this he said that each set of carpets for each car, for example, were made by hand at the factory and a set made for one car would not fit another – even if it was the same model.

Bonnets, boot lids and doors were individual to the cars they were made for, and so every body part of every car was unique to that car.

We saw cars in varying stages of build and it was fascinating to see under the skin of new cars showing just how much workmanship was being put into them.

Outside in a yard there were some body shells of TVR Tuscan’s. Someone asked why they were there, at which point it was explained these were rejects. These reject TVR body shells were never wasted, because if a TVR repair centre needed a front end of a Tuscan, for example, to repair a crashed car, the front of a body with a reject rear from this yard would be cut off and sent out to complete the repair.

An Insteresting Collection of Cars

We were taken to an outbuilding, of which there were many in this very old set of factory buildings, and here there were a number of different cars collected.

There was an example of the TVR Typhon, the then new Tuscan based sports coupé with a supercharged engine. As if a TVR isn’t powerful enough to begin with!

The famous TVR Cerbera Speed–12 was there, looking gorgeous in its deep ruby–red paintwork and somewhat menacing with the louvers, grills and flared body panels.

The TVR Cerbera Speed–12 car had a bespoke 7.2–litre V12 AJP engine and was intended as the first of a limited number that Peter Wheeler wanted to build for a limited number of carefully selected customers. As things turned out, the car we were looking at was the only one to be registered for the road, as the project had to be abandoned.

A TVR Formula One Racing Car

Over in the corner was a single seat open wheel race car, and this was a curious thing to find at TVR.

I asked about the racing car and what it was doing there. I was told Peter Wheeler, with AJP engine designer, Al Melling, had been look at the feasibility of entering a team into Formula One.

The car I was looking at was fitted with the AJP–V8, as used in the TVR Cerbera, and actually had been tested on track. The engine had leant itself well to this application, as it was structurally so strong it was capable of serving as a stressed member – just what you need for an F1 car.

The AJP–V8 was so incredibly light–weight, as compared to its power output, this was another reason it was in this racing car. However, the foray into Formula 1 for TVR now looked highly unlikely and the car was now sure to become a museum exhibit.

At the end of the tour, Mike had become so besotted with the place and everything TVR, if he had found a complete car for sale he would have bought it there and then, put it in his pocket and taken it home with him.

The trip back down the motorways went by very quickly, with no hold ups to speak of, apart from Young wanting the loo. With everyone dropped back off at their respective homes, the hire car unpacked and left at the hire company yard, a shower and a night in a familiar bed was most welcome.

TVR Sports Cars Were Being Sold Too Cheaply

For quite a while after that visit to the TVR factory I kept thinking about this sports car maker and all the financial pain it had been through, and would be going through. Would TVR have sold it’s sports cars at £80,000, for example? Yes, I think it would, and with the much higher price tag, quality and factory facilities could have improved enough to make the cars worth every penny.

TVR started life building kit cars to assemble at home. From there, the sports cars were selling in the class of MG and Austin–Healey. The trouble is, as I saw it, this was a car company that was trying to build world class sports cars, but with a budget sports car retail price. That was never going to work and maybe was a fundamental flaw in the whole company strategy?

Whatever the future for TVR, a tour of the factory was certainly a worthy experience. Even Wendy, who is relatively non–plussed about cars, found it fascinating. I think what we were looking that day at was an endangered species and I was thankful that I at least had the chance to see the place whilst it was still alive.

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TVR Car Club Back Home Event 2006