I'd always had a love of cars but one day, while working for a small IT company in my college holidays during 1989, it all got a bit . . obsessive.
My office was on the second floor of an industrial unit with no windows. I began to hear a deep rumbling sound, it seemed to get closer and more pronounced. It became clear this was the exhaust note of a car but it was something out of the ordinary. As it got closer the metal sheet walls of the building actually started rattling in response to the noise.
This needed investigating. I rushed downstairs and out into the car park . . . where I fell instantly in love.
Sat gleaming in the sunshine with the roof down and a soft burbling exhaust note was the most beautiful car I'd ever seen. For a moment I thought it was a Ferrari but as I looked closer I saw that wasn't the case. The driver noticed my interest, grinned and blipped the throttle resulting in a noise I can only describe as a bark making me jump out of my skin. He shut the car off and came to have a chat. It turned out he was the husband of our Technical Director and had come to pick her up and take her for lunch.
The car was a TVR 400SE. A car hand-built in England with a tubular chassis, GRP bodywork and a 275BHP, 4.0 litre V8 engine. Now, for you guys reading in the USA, 4.0 litres sounds pretty weak? That's not much over 240ci, but at the time the most common cars on UK roads were only 1.8 or 2.0 litres. A 4.0 litre V8 in a car weighing only 1150 kg (2535 lb) produces a car which pretty damn quick!
The interior was full leather and wood and in the summer heat, the smell of the warm leather and the cooling V8 engine was an intoxicating mix.
As our Technical Director was driven off, and I stood listening to the exhaust note all the way out of the industrial park and, it seemed, halfway across town I knew that one day I would have to own one.
Little did I know that would become two . . . then three . . . and now collecting old unloved TVRs (and some other old classics) and restoring them to beauty is my obsession. . . and I'll share the collection with you in future posts!
All the best,
Darren
Restomania
