TVR Typhon: the fastest TVR ever built, three cars made

The TVR Typhon is the fastest production TVR ever built, since the Cerbera Speed 12 never reached production, and only three were made. It grew out of Peter Wheeler’s ambition to take TVR to Le Mans with a new composite-bodied car.

TVR Typhon at a glance

Based on one source: the English Wikipedia article on the TVR Typhon.

History of the TVR Typhon

In the late 1990s Peter Wheeler began the project that would fulfil his ambition of seeing TVRs at Le Mans. It needed an entirely new car, built with modern composites, more rigid than any previous TVR and designed for 200 mph on the Mulsanne Straight. The car was a steel tubular frame with a full roll cage forming the backbone of a full carbon fibre monocoque. Though larger than any earlier road TVR, it was lighter, stiffer and stronger, with new suspension designs and professional CAD and aerodynamic testing.

The project began as the TuscanR, also called the T400R, a two-seater composite race and road car. Between 2000 and 2004 TVR built seven race cars and six or seven road cars, the road cars having no standard interior because customers specified their own. In 2002 the two homologation cars were split into the T400R with a 4.0-litre six and the T440R with a 4.2. The Typhon itself was announced in late 2003, briefly named the T550R: a supercharged 4.0-litre T440 with larger brakes, the option of a sequential gearbox in place of the standard five-speed manual and sequential rather than batch injection. The T400R badge was dropped because the Typhon retained the two-model line-up the FIA required.

Before any customer Typhon could be delivered, Peter Wheeler sold TVR, and development of the race cars, the T440 and the Typhon stopped. The orange car was fitted with a TVR Vortech supercharger and the in-house sequential gearbox and kept by the factory as a development mule for the Typhoon project; in 2004 testing it produced over 600 bhp. TVR blamed delivery delays on heat from the supercharger during 2005, although the closure of the Composites Department around the same time suggests a story to mask deepening financial trouble. The two Reflex Charcoal Typhons were fitted with unsupercharged 4.0-litre Tuscan S engines; one was sold directly to a customer and the other was used by TVR’s new owner before being sold on. Both were road registered in 2006, the orange car in 2004, although all were built around 2003 and 2004. Priced at £84,995 at launch, the Typhon reached £134,995 by 2005, with track-day gearbox and differential options listed at £33,995 and £14,995. The cars cost far more to build than anticipated, which is why production effectively stopped after 2004.

Design and features

• Carbon monocoque: a steel frame and roll cage inside a full carbon fibre structure.
• Supercharged Speed Six: TVR Vortech supercharging, over 600 bhp in testing.
• 200 mph design: a shape developed with CAD and aero testing for the Mulsanne Straight.
• Three cars: one orange development car and two Reflex Charcoal cars.

TVR Typhon versions

• TuscanR prototype (2000): the first NEC show car.
• T400R and T440R (2002): the homologation cars, later badged separately.
• Typhon (2003): the supercharged 4.0-litre model, named T550R briefly.
• Production Typhons (2003–06): one orange and two Reflex Charcoal cars.

The Typhon grew out of the T440R and uses the Speed Six engine family of the Tuscan. More cars are in the TVR collection.

Video: TVR Typhon – BURNOUT, revs and sounds! (One of the rarest cars in the World!)

Video by AdamC3046 on YouTube.

Sources

• TVR Typhon, English Wikipedia: project, naming, specifications, the three cars