The TVR name will return to top-level endurance racing this year, with the revived British firm partnering the Rebellion Racing team in the Le Mans 24 Hours and FIA World Endurance Championship.
TVR is currently developing its first road car model since it was bought by a consortium headed by Les Edgar four years ago, a 500bhp Griffith two-seater road car that will go into production in 2019.
Under the name Rebellion Racing TVR, the firm will serve as ‘primary automotive partner’ of Swiss team Rebellion’s pair of ORECA R-13 LMP prototypes.
It will be TVR’s first official motorsport project in 13 years. While the tie-up largely appears to be a sponsorship agreement, TVR says learnings from the collaboration will “flow directly” into the development of planned future road and racing cars.
“When we resurrected the TVR brand, we knew that we wanted to achieve a return to the race track,” said TVR chairman Edgar. “Our partnership with Rebellion Racing allows us to achieve that goal, while bringing about valuable operational and technical knowledge, which directly transfers to our road car operation and future racing activities.”
This year’s FIA World Endurance Championship is a ‘super series’ that spans 2018 and 2019, and begins at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium on 5 May. A pre-season launch event will be held at Paul Ricard in France this weekend.
Rebellion’s two LMP1 cars are set to be driven by Andre Lotterer, Neel Jani and Bruno Senna, with Thomas Laurent, Matthias Beche and Gustavo Menezes in the other machine.
TVR’s last works motorsport project came with the GT2 class Tuscan Speed Six 400R, which most recently ran in the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2005, fielded by the Racesport Peninsula squad.
TVR’s first three models – the 1, 2 and 3 – were all racing cars, and the firm first competed at Le Mans with the Grantura in 1962. It was also well known for running a string of successful one-make championships in the UK, including the TVR Tuscan Challenge.
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I Imagine they'll use it
partly to entertain those very customers who have waited patiently for them and that the next step will be a tie-up with Rebellion to run Gordon's race car versions of the road car. Didn't work out too badly for McLaren and the F1.
So it’s some stickers?
Am I missing the point here or have TVR just bought some expensive stickers on the side of a car that bares no relation to anything they have ever built or are likely to build? Surely the sort of people who will buy a TVR are a bit more clued up than that aren’t they? Mind you, I seem to remember posting something similar about Lotus a few years ago, and that worked out just dandy.
Priorities
Shouldn't the firm be concentrating on getting road cars built and delivered to those customers who have placed deposits and who have been waiting for longer than initially promised? To be diverting funds towards sponsoring a team with no connection to TVR seems a rather frivolous activity.
Forward to Aston Martin.
Please forward this to Andy Palmer of Aston Martin. He's wanting to waste the little profit they've made on Red Bull, who dwarf them!