| Manufacturer | TVR |
|---|---|
| Production | 2004 (2 road-legal cars produced) |
| Class | Sports Car |
| Body style | 2-door coupe |
| Layout | FR layout |
| Engine | TVR Speed Six |
| Related | TVR T440R |
The TVR Typhon was a sports car designed and built by the British car manufacturer TVR in their former factory in Blackpool. The Typhon is possibly the fastest production TVR ever, except the Cerbera Speed 12 which was produced only in one example. There are only two remaining road legal TVR Typhon, one in Scotland, UK and one in England, UK.
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Like all TVRs, the car lacked any electronic safety devices such ABS or any kind of traction control believing it to be safer without.[1] Its power was originally planned to have stemmed from a supercharged 4200cc TVR Speed Six straight six engine that powers the Tuscan, Sagaris and Cerbera Speed Six, with the lightly tuned Speed Six 4.0 litre engine and a non-supercharged 4.2 litre engine to service the lesser models of the range - the T400 and T440 respectively, meant to denote their proposed power output figures in brake horsepower. The lesser cars were required for homologation purposes - the T400R race cars were not supercharged. The power was to be put down through either the Tuscan S manual gearbox, or a race-style true sequential gearbox with adjustable gear ratios.
Unlike most TVRs, which were relatively simple tubular steel spaceframes clad with fiberglass panels, the Typhon range had a combination of a steel spaceframe with full roll cage, combined with aluminium honeycomb sections, and a carbon fiber floor, which allowed weight to be kept remarkably low compared to similar cars from Ferrari and Porsche, which were several hundred kilos heavier. The overall weight was around 1100 kg giving it approximately 530 bhp (400 kW) per tonne in supercharged form, comparable to the Ferrari Enzos 484 bhp/ton. The whole chassis was designed from ground up using CAD and CAM software, a first for TVR, who still tended to mainly use hand-draughted and clay sculpted design, reserving CAD for drivetrain design. The Typhon was also the first road going TVR to be supplied with adjustable dampers as standard, enabling customers to fine tune the car's handling characteristics.
Problems emerged during development however - the range topping Typhon was due to be the fastest production TVR had made by a large margin thanks to the engine producing 580 bhp with ease (previous cars had typically had little more than 400 bhp), and also to have a true, race style sequential gearbox - unlike the hydraulically operated sequential manuals found in Ferraris and BMWs of the time, which were essentially standard gearboxes with computer controlled actuation. It was also proposed to have adjustable ratios for use on race tracks. However, although the supercharged engine produced more power than required, well within safe tolerances for the block (initial specification for the engine was to be 500 bhp) when installed in the car, it had many heat expulsion issues, and after trialling it was decided that it wouldn't be suitable for production for safety reasons, and so the naturally aspirated Speed Six engines were the only engines available. The race-style sequential gearbox, much like the engine, never got to reach customer cars due for similar reasons; it never got much beyond the development stage.
Combined with multiple delays, the removal of the supercharged engine and specialist gearbox from the range caused almost all potential customers to cancel their deposits - as they were put down on the proviso that the car would have truly extreme performance - resulting in only two of the 'neutered' cars officially being sold, as T4xx Typhon variants with the naturally aspirated engines and standard H-gate manual gearboxes.
The original Typhon concept of a supercharged, road legal near race car resurfaced in 2007 as the TVR Typhoon. However, TVRs was by this point in administrative dire straits, and the car has yet to surface as anything other than a press statement.
Engine
Engine (Final) (Proposed):
Transmission
Transmission: Six speed manual gearbox (six speed sequential gearbox)
Suspension
Front: Double Wishbones with coil springs over adjustable gas dampers, anti-roll bar
Rear: Double Wishbones with coil springs over adjustable gas dampers, anti-roll bar
Brakes
Front: Vented Discs with 4-piston calipers with 322 mm brake rotors
Rear: Vented Discs with single-piston calipers and 298 mm brake rotors
Chassis/Body
Body: Carbonfibre body panels
Chassis: Tubular Steel spaceframe with aluminium/carbonfibre reinforcement, integral steel roll cage
Performance
Acceleration: 0-62 mph: Under 4.0 Seconds
Top Speed: Approx 200 mph (215 mph+ for supercharged variant)
[1] - TVR Typhon at Supercars.net original story by TVR Cars Ltd
[2] - TVR Typhon press release story from Evo Magazine based on the original cars specifications.
[3] - TVR Typhoon press release story from Evo Magazine.