la nouvelle Griffith

[_Zeb_]

Eh Gilles, et on dit merci qui ???

Oui, merci Antoine
Même si avec la Cerbera, au début, j'ai maudit le jour ou je l'ai croisé
Soyons positif, à part 2 alternateurs, je n'ai plus eu de pannes depuis un an et pourtant, je la "sollicite" pas mal

C'est clair, tu donnes presque envie de franchir le cap.
Tu devrais être sponsorisé par TVR pour faire taire les mauvaises langues

[Griff78]

La question est: si les "First edition" sont à 100 000€, peut-on espérer que les modèle "non carbone" descendent autour de 80000€, ce qui serait à mon avis une garantie de succès.

Ce sera le cas, les modèles en fibres seront à 80k€, ils ont envoyé un mail aux acheteurs de First Edition, pour info on est 10 en France ;)

[antoine44]

La question est: si les "First edition" sont à 100 000€, peut-on espérer que les modèle "non carbone" descendent autour de 80000€, ce qui serait à mon avis une garantie de succès.

Ce sera le cas, les modèles en fibres seront à 80k€, ils ont envoyé un mail aux acheteurs de First Edition, pour info on est 10 en France ;)

Dis moi Griff, tu écris "on est 10 en France", ferais tu partie de ces 10 ???

[Griff78]

Oui j'en fais parti, un ami également, il y a aussi quelqu'un du forum ici si j'ai bien compris, reste plus que 7 gars à identifier

[Griff78]

Si ça vous intéresse, je vous fais un copié/collé du dernier mail ;)

[papa125]

Ah oui ça nous intéresse !

[[4rn0|]

4 chez nous...

[antoine44]

4 chez nous...

Des noms, des noms

[Griff78]

4 chez nous...

ça veut dire quoi?

[_Zeb_]

Arnaud a repris ma réservation, il avait un candidat plus motivé que moi.

Sinon voici la dernière communication de mi-septembre :

Dear Vincent

A quick intermediate update with the promised information for you regarding build slots. Thank you to all who responded - even those who did so late! - we have included the details of your order again at the foot of this mailing as a record.

We appreciate that there is hunger to know what this information translates into in terms of build and delivery dates, and I confirm that that is being worked on as we speak; in my next mail (which will also reveal the major news I alluded to last time) we will confirm a window for your delivery date, which will then be further refined as orders are confirmed and production is under way. It remains our aim to deliver all 500 LE model cars within a maximum of 12 months of SOP, and more quickly if we can. We are all impatient to see our fantastic car rolling off the lines, and onto the streets and the drives of all of us.

Meanwhile, testing of the car continues, including intensive tyre testing with AVON evaluating sets of their latest performance tyres, including an initial batch of TVR-specific compounds and tread patterns.



Featuring a softer compound than has previously been used, these tyres have been tested on various development vehicles as well as the DP1 Griffith and initial feedback is very positive. "Lots of grip with very progressive breakaway when pressed hard", so just the ticket for a high power rear-wheel drive car. They have also been extensively load-bench tested up to 230mph, so high enough for us (for now!)



It is worth noting in passing that not only is the car extremely rapid and competent on track (think GT3RS without the nanny aids, yet so controllable thanks to light weight distributed perfectly fore and aft, the aero, and huge mechanical grip - it really is fantastic fun to throw around, as all who have ridden in and driven it will testify) for those of you thinking of tracking their car it is really light on tyres and brakes - again greatly helped by the aforesaid light weight and aero. You'll use a bit more than in a Caterfield or similar, but not that much, and much, much less than any of our tonne and a half plus competitors. It is also extremely comfortable at road speeds and on surfaces of all sorts (pretty handy in pothole-strewn Britain at the moment)

We've also taken the opportunity to get some track footage recorded, so expect to see a video shortly; pending production, here's a clip to give a flavour (disclaimer - it's not representative of the film quality, sound, ideal line into Quarry, etc. - just a panning pass grabbed on an iPhone!) Click HERE to view



Sooo - on to the bit you've been eagerly waiting for - now that we have collated the details regarding positioning in the build sequence, and allowing for the fact that not all persons have confirmed, your sequence position is indicated below.

[Griff78]

Communication d'aout:

(je ne sais si cela a déjà été posté)

Thank you for your patience and apologies for the delay in this latest update emerging - it's not simply that we're still a small team working flat out every hour of the day on all fronts, with no huge PR machine as yet (although that happens to be true!) - we are also close, we believe, to being able to announce some very big news indeed. We can't yet hint at it, but suffice to say that it moves our volume plans from an original high of 2,000 units a year, to a significantly higher volume across multiple platforms and territories. Needless to say, very exciting, and we look forward to sharing as soon we can publicly announce it.

So, what's been going on?

As well as working on the major project above, we nipped over to Le Mans with the Rebellion TVR and won the non-hybrid class (3rd and 4th overall, and despite a slightly eventful start to the race!), which made us very proud and smiley indeed. The mules have been busy testing at Dunsfold (the Top Gear test track) and other circuits, the Demonstrator Prototype (DP1) has been shown at Le Mans, Burghley, Silverstone and Beaulieu. It has also been driven on track extensively, with tweaks to various aspects, not least gearing, finessing what is already an incredible car straight out of the box. More on that in a later part of this update.



We've not made any secret of the fact that there have been delays in getting possession of the main factory facility in Ebbw Vale. To mitigate the position, and crack on towards start of production (I know everyone is waiting impatiently for their car, including me!) we have secured another facility meanwhile (originally this was due to be the SVO premises) which the Welsh authorities assure us will be ready in October. This will allow us to get under way with pilot builds, workforce training, and so on, and it's possible that the very first production cars will be built here. That's one of the (many!) beauties of iStream - you can almost 'pop-up' a factory in any location, to any scale, more or less overnight.

Deposit Queue positions
A very commonly asked question is “What’s my place in the queue?”. Before we answer that one there are a couple of points to take into consideration. The first is that deposits can be placed by phone, on-line, bank transfer and cheque. It has happened that people have reserved a car using our on-line form but not paid the deposit for some weeks. As a result, we decided very early on to determine queue positions at the point we actually receive cleared funds in our account- this seemed the fairest way.

Next up is what happens if somebody drops out from the deposit list (hard to believe, I know). Up until now, we have automatically moved everybody up a place, with the blank spot moving to the end of the queue. We will continue to do this if any cancellations are received. We have included at the bottom of this email a record of the details we have on file for you, and would ask that you confirm our records reflect your wishes. Following receipt of these confirmations, we will then let you know (by 1st week in September) broadly where you are in the build queue – to the nearest 50 cars, so you will know whether you are in 1-50, 51-100, 101-150 etc. We would like a reasonably high response rate to be able to respond accurately, although a lack of response will not prevent us assuming our records are correct, and sending you your approximate queue position.

Ok, so what does the slot position actually tell me?
Well, as you can appreciate, a new production line for a hand-built car does not start with the flick of a switch and gain immediate momentum. The production curve will be non-linear. We have said that it is our intent to build all 500 LE cars within the first 12-14 months from start of production (SoP). This is still the case, but that doesn’t mean 10 cars a week from day one – volumes will increase as we build confidence in the supply chain and the production line itself – there will be issues that need resolving as we start production, slowing it down somewhat, while we adjust.

Further impacts on your delivery date may come from specialised paint and trim finishes or other accessories and options you may choose – potential delays from chosen options will be made clear prior to finalising your order though.

Is the price still fixed?
Another point we have noted, from conversations with many of you, and feedback on forums, is the price of the car. Just to re-confirm, this is (and will remain) £89,995 for the Launch Edition car. It's one of the things we're working extremely hard on - we're not ones to diss (forgive the pun) the opposition, but when someone told me the price of the Evora next to us in the pit lane at Silverstone, I nearly fell out of the car! To deliver the car we are, for sub-£90k, is pretty amazing, and requires very careful supply chain management.

Launch Edition or Configurable; Coupe or convertible; MY01 or later car??
We're frequently asked whether we will be making a convertible version of the Griffith, and the short answer to that is ‘yes - but not yet’; the car has been designed to accommodate this (and to be easily manufacturable in LHD form) from the very outset - the roof doesn't add to the structural rigidity of the tub, and is there purely for aero, to keep the rain off, and your barnet under control. Timing of the convertible is yet to be decided however - there's a huge amount of engineering involved in developing a soft top system that would be acceptable to us in terms of fit and finish, and which doesn't try to rip itself off the car at 200mph, so this model will only come after we have completed the initial production run of 500 cars.

The cars that follow on from the LE cars are referred to as MY01 or ‘configurable’.

It seems that some are assuming a configurable car could be more highly specified than the LE car. This is not necessarily the case and, inevitably, a configurable car will cost more to purchase when optioned to a similar spec as the LE car. Some LE included features will NOT be available on later models, including ‘configurable’ cars.


The broad top-level specification for the LE car is as follows:
Carbon fibre panelled chassis structure
Carbon composite body
Ground Effect diffuser system
5.0 Gen 3 Coyote multiport injection (2018) engine with Cosworth Dry Sump & TVR Power performance power upgrade
Full Premium leather interior
19” Front, 20” rear alloy wheels (unique to LE edition)
AP Racing brakes (6-piston front + 4-piston rear, discs on bells)
Tremec Magnum XL manual 6-speed gearbox, rated to 700lb/ft.
Choice of colours including unique LE colour
£89,995 OTR

The base configurable car (MY01) is as follows:
Composite panelled chassis structure
Composite Body
Ground Effect diffuser system
5.0 Gen 3 Coyote multiport injection (2018) engine – wet sump
Leather interior
Standard 18”/19” alloy wheels
Standard brakes
Standard 6-speed manual gearbox
Full range of colours (special colours at extra cost)
£79k OTR (Target price currently).

The configurable car can be specified with many of the LE ‘standard’ options:
Carbon fibre panelled chassis structure
Carbon composite body
5.0 Gen 3 Coyote multiport injection (2018) engine with Cosworth Dry Sump & TVR Power performance upgrade
Full Premium leather interior
19”/20” alloy wheels
AP Racing brakes (6-piston front + 4-piston rear, discs on bells)
Tremec Magnum XL manual 6-speed gearbox, rated to 700lb/ft.

We haven't finalised options costings at this stage, but on current estimates the likely cost if all of the above options were chosen, would be in the region of £115k - hammering home what good value the LE car is; we'd like to say we're just being generous, but the truth is that there's huge advantage to us in making the first 500 cars to a similar specification, as it simplifies things massively while we get the production process humming along.


Racing Improves The Breed (Particularly When You're Winning!

Further to the incredible performance of the TVR-Rebellion cars in the Le Mans 24 Hours that I couldn't help bragging about earlier(!) we will be running again at Silverstone on 19th August, and I hope that lots of you will get a chance to see them performing. The governing body of the World Endurance Race series, the ACO, have now acknowledged that the Hybrid Toyotas had something of an unfair advantage at Le Mans, and have sought to level the playing field with a number of changes prior to Silverstone, so the fight is now properly on, as they say - see you there!

It’s worth noting that TVR Racing is run completely independently from the TVR road car operation – we've heard a few people mutter that we’re diverting attention from the development and manufacture of the road cars - this is absolutely not the case, there's some crossover but the key personnel and people behind the project are different and there's no dilution of effort at all - on the contrary, as ever, learnings from the race programme feed directly and beneficially into the road car development and manufacturing environment.


Engineering/Technical

One of the key components of our car is excellent engineering and we always try to stick with ‘First Principles’ as a driving force. That means we constantly focus on:
Lightness
Lightness
Lightness
Rigidity
Handling
Aero
Weight distribution
Power per tonne
Safety

All easy to aspire to, but not so easy to achieve! The target weight for the car is <1300kg. The major powertrain components combined weigh over 375kg nearly 30% of the car’s total weight – not a lot left for the chassis, suspension, body, seats, wheels, trim, air-con etc!
Then you have to get the weight evenly distributed along the wheelbase – 50/50 – also not easy when you start with a hefty V8 and performance gearbox plus all the engine bay gubbins up front.

More of how we achieved that in another mailing. For now, I wanted to emphasise why your Ground Effect car has exceptional handling. Ground effect is the phenomenon of creating low pressure air under the car with fast-moving air, effectively sucking the car down onto the road. In order to achieve this, the airflow under the car must be as uninterrupted as possible – disturbed air (this happens when car components under the car such as exhaust pipes, sump, gearbox, differential interfere with the airflow) causes turbulence and therefore instability. In order to keep the air travelling beneath the car as ‘clean’ as possible, we have engineered a flat floor beneath the car, covering everything – engine bay, gearbox and diff. Obviously we can’t enclose the wheels, so there are a few additions to the floor that are designed to move the air around the wheels and not disturb the flow too much. As the air moves to the back of the car it is manipulated by the rear diffuser – the key to managing the ground effect properly.

As fantastic as this is, it has a number of inherent challenges for your average engineer. Luckily, we didn’t choose an ‘average’ engineer to design our chassis – Gordon Murray is popularly known as the god of Ground Effect. The primary challenges are those of managing heat when the engine bay is completely enclosed, what to do with the exhaust system when you have a front mid-engined car oh, and making sure you don’t have too much downforce – that creates drag, slowing things down! As ever, the physical world is a series of compromises that keeps it in balance – our car is no exception. We rely heavily on physics to make the car handle and therefore have to use the compromises that implies to our best advantage. The Griffith is only the second front-engined production car to have full ground effect – the first was the iconic Merecdes McLaren SLR – also designed by Gordon.

Interestingly enough, the ground effect chassis alone generates the equivalent of 570+kg of downforce at high speed – the same as putting this weight on top of your car. That’s an amazing difference between the Griffith and a non-GE car which would probably be generating lift at an equivalent speed!

The body surface of the car does the opposite though - it generates ‘lift’, sucking the car up, in much the same way an aircraft wing does. Other design features on the car add to downforce – the rear wing, the chassis and even the wing mirrors do their bit. We have tuned the overall effect such that the net product is just enough downforce to give exceptional handling at high speed, but not too much as to slow the car down.

Take a look at some of the aero work we have modelled below:






The amount of downforce generated by the floor is amazing – like placing half a tonne on top of the car!

Yes, but what does it drive like??

OK, I think it's brilliant, and you’d expect (and hope) I would say that. So, we asked one of our founders to try the car out at Silverstone Classic, Beaulieu and during some of our private test days. Our Stig has huge driving experience, has a large collection of sports cars including a number of TVRs, has driven all in anger successfully at various racing events over many years and has clocked up over 3500 laps on the Nurburgring..

Here are some of his impressions of the new car after testing (abusing!) the new Griffith at various recent events :-

“First, this is 100%, absolutely, a TVR in every way - there's no doubt that it's captured the essence, distilled the DNA, and is a true TVR; lots to be proud of on that front. Everyone says it looks great in the flesh, even if they had not initially thought so in the pictures; very few negative comments so far from anyone who's seen her in person.

Second, what a car! In the modern age where everything's got so bloated and tech-bound, a real breath of fresh air. Light, properly grunty, nimble, aural, analogue. Love it!

Yes, you can really feel the aero package working – and the chassis? Wow! Stiifff. You can ride the kerbs as in a race car, at any speed, and there isn't a single murmur, creak or groan. Genuinely first class - added to which the aircon blends nicely, she idles happily in tropical heat (both before and after being ragged on track), the mirrors work..there's a decent boot...What a car...!

Re the questions as to how she handles on the limit? Turn in is instinctive, telepathic, full of resolve, and at ordinary levels the handling is just so beautifully benign, with no nanny aids needed, then towards / on the limit she's easy to provoke into mild understeer, lift-off oversteer, lairy booted oversteer, or happy just to hold a line and play tunes on the fiddle as you please; it's all good, perfectly balanced, and all accompanied by the aforesaid sense of total structural integrity, chassis resolve, safety (passive and active) and bulletproof mechanical grunt and integrity. All so much fun!”

Next Update
In responding to the requests for more frequent updates, we will be sending out another (no later than October) but, in the meantime, we will be sending you the elusive questionnaire mentioned in a previous update, together with some provisional option choices (audio, media, etc.) for the car for your feedback - on the basis that we want to be able to feed your responses directly into the options list, we have had to get to the point (which we're nearly at now) where we've sufficient clarity on what we're able sensibly to offer in the way of upgrades, packs, etc., and at what cost (both in terms of financial cost to us and impact on the simplicity of the production run of the 500 LE cars), before finalising the form. Please watch out for it in your inbox shortly.

We will also bring you more information on the technology under the skin of the new car and a further update on our progress with the later Gen 3 Coyote.

That’s about it for the moment; I hope you’ve found this update helpful and informative - and we'll share the major news I mentioned at the beginning of this update the minute we can.

Best wishes

Les

Les Edgar
Chairman
TVR Manufacturing Ltd

[Griff78]

Ok Seb, cela veut dire qu'Arnaud a repris ta commande? Et donc il y a trois autres personnes sur le site/club TVR France?

[_Zeb_]

Je ne sais pas s'ils sont sur le forum mais pour certains au club en tous cas. Univers Motors avait pris des réservations pour anticiper la demande.

[Griff78]

Ok, merci

[papa125]

Lightness
Lightness
Lightness