Dear Julian,

Let’s start at the beginning.

Back in July, my only car was a 1.2 Renault Clio and was a car similar to those I had been used to ever since I first started to drive. Although nothing special it got me from A to B in an unexciting sort of way, so much so that I had begun to take the train in preference. It might have taken a little longer, but it was more relaxing and I could at least read a book or the paper and have a beer on the way. Living and working in London, a car was a weekend thing only for me and I used the thing so little, in fact, that it was insured, over the period of last year with a 3,000 mile limit. By the time we reached July the car had been untaxed and out of MOT for six months. I had been saying for years that the only reason I kept the Clio was to keep the no-claims bonus going for the day when I got the chance to buy a fun car.

In July 2003, I realised that I was in a position to achieve my goal. It wasn’t something that I’d been particularly focussing up until then, but a trip to the BTCC at Rockingham, and some reports on Top Gear, made me think that now was the time to make the move to something a little more exciting. I wanted to get something that was new to me, a little different to the run of the mill type cars and a car that was going to be good fun! Those were the elements that made up the criteria for my next car. I set about searching on the web to get an idea of prices and considered what my desired machine would be.

My considerations were,

The Lotus Elise - nice, but everyone has one, and as I said before, I needed something a little different.

The Vauxhall VX220 Turbo - a bit more than I wanted to spend, but I had to agree it was different.

The Vauxhall VX220 non-turbo. Different and a good buy, but a little suspect on performance.

Caterham 7 - a popular machine, but I wondered what the build quality would be like.

I started to think about how I was going to use whatever beast I bought, and if it had to serve an additional practical purpose. I decided that practicality wasn’t an issue and considered that I could actually cope with loading up the passenger foot-well with bags if I wanted to go away anywhere.

One day, whilst browsing for my dream car, I noticed that for the money I was thinking of spending I could get a TVR Chimaera or Cerbera! As I really wanted a ‘roof off’ driving experience the choice was made easy, and the fact that I would even get a large capacity boot too was even better. I also considered that performance-wise the TVR would kick the Elise and the VX220 way into next week? Okay, I now know that round the twisties the Elise and VX220 are probably more nimble, but my experience of fun cars had been strictly limited up until now, and anyway, what happens if I want to take someone away for a weeks holiday. I was bitten by the bug and a TVR Chimaera it was going to be.

It was only a couple of weeks later that I realised that I’d been drooling over TVR’s for years and that I’d finally achieved a childhood dream. After a lot of soul-searching, and finding that even if I travelled 200 miles, I’d be lucky to see more than one even at a dealership as they were shifting like hot cakes at the time. It was most definitely not a colour that I would have specified had I been buying one from new, but it definitely floated my boat, and even though it was the first one I had seen I had to have it.

Having bought the thing I resolved first to drive it as much as the insurance mileage limitations would allow me to do, and secondly to meet a few owners to get a better idea of what I’d let myself in for and where to get it fixed.

Enter the TVRCC. After a week or two of finding excuses to gate-crash friends and family who weren’t expecting me, just to show off the car, I met the Middlesex guys at Croxley Green at one of their regular regional meetings, and as a result went to Bruntingthorpe for Mania. Since then the club has cost me hundreds of pounds in petrol as I visited various parts of the South East for highly enjoyable and instructive meets, not least when my hazards appeared to stick on halfway to Kent – a problem that was resolved at the meet. Hand signals on the motorway at more than 60mph do make your arm ache!

All was well except that I knew I wasn’t happy driving it around corners. One particular bend, a rather lucky 180 that damaged nothing, had already taught me to remember some of the more obvious things – such as braking and turning at the same time is not a good idea. I knew that I wasn’t driving the car well and that I was not getting the most out of owning it, which contributed to making me feel a little nervous. More importantly it reduced the fun I was getting for the car in the first place. I knew the car felt unsettled but I didn’t really know how I could avoid this. I thought my driving style was reasonably normal, which it probably was for a 1.2 Clio driver, but I knew I needed something more to properly enjoy the TVR.

Now, some kind of advanced driving course had always been on my plan and simply because I hadn’t driven anything remotely like a TVR in my life. My main problem was that such sessions seemed to be a tad expensive and my feeling of hesitancy was compounded by the fact that I didn’t really know what I would be getting for my money. After shopping around, reading some reviews and talking to people, I finally booked a session with Ride Drive Ltd. Four - hours on a Saturday afternoon based from my mum’s house, and so I could have dinner with her in the evening.

Well, I knew I wasn’t doing it right, but I had no idea how much I was missing! A short drive out to a road that the police use for driver training gave Lee, my guide for the session, a short-list of points that needed work and attention. A run back down the same road with Lee guiding me in how I should be driving, and I really started to get the feel of what I could potentially get out of the session. I was only half an hour into it and already I knew that this was going to be real fun! We spent most of the next three hours honing my skills around country lanes and went around corners, at speeds I would never have previously attempted, and performed overtaking manoeuvres that I would never have even considered before the course. I had drawn comfort from the fact that Lee was there beside me to advise me if I was making a mistake or over-doing it and gained a huge amount of confidence in my abilities as a driver. He often pointed out the things that he was observing that gave me clues as to what was on the road ahead, and he did not hold back in praise when he felt I had showed good observation skills and driving ability. So much so that when I started fish-tailing at the start of an overtake, caught it and completed the overtake successfully, he actually complimented me on my swift reactions – much to my surprise.

Disappointingly we had to stop the course fifteen minutes early as I was running out of fuel and starting to get fuel starvation. For £120, and a tank of fuel, I reckon that 150+ miles in 3½ hours driving round B and C class roads, including coming up behind three or four horseboxes and a couple of tractors, had me feeling completely at ease with the car and for that it was more than worth the money.

I now feel that I can make much better progress without taking any risks. This is partly because of the driving techniques I learned and because my observational skills are now so much more advanced. I find I can carry out some of the manoeuvres, which I would have considered too risky in the past, confident in my ability and new-found knowledge to realise that it is safe when completed by use of the driving system I had now been given.

Having had a taste of what Ride Drive can offer me as a TVR owner I just can’t wait to get back to them and get onto a track or airfield with them to learn how to control the car doing some of the really serious stuff!

Nigel Childs

North London

TVR Chimaera