TVR Griffith

In short

• Built in Blackpool, production listed from 1991 to 2002; Wikipedia gives 2,351 cars in total.
• Rover V8 engines from 4.0 to 5.0 litres, from 179 kW (243 PS) to 254 kW (345 PS), five-speed manual gearbox.
• Dry weight 1,060 kg; the Griffith 500 reaches 272 km/h.
• A Special Edition of 100 cars marked the end of production in 2000–2002.

TVR Griffith at a glance

The Griffith name: from the 1960s to the 1990s

TVR used the Griffith name first in the 1960s. The Griffith 200 was built from 1963 to 1964 and the Griffith 400 from 1964 to 1967. Under Peter Wheeler, TVR revived the name for a new roadster.

The new Griffith was first shown in 1990, and series production followed. It combined a glass-fibre body over a chassis with double-wishbone suspension at all four corners, coil-over gas dampers and anti-roll bars at both ends. TVR fitted 260 mm ventilated disc brakes all round. The gearbox was a five-speed manual, either the Rover LT77 or the Tremec T5.

Engines and performance

All Griffiths used versions of the Rover aluminium V8 with overhead valves and two valves per cylinder. English Wikipedia lists five versions:

With 254 kW and a dry weight of 1,060 kg, the Griffith 500 has about 240 kW per tonne. Even the 4.0-litre car reaches about 169 kW per tonne. Our car rankings compare power-to-weight figures across models.

The Griffith 500 was the 5.0-litre car. For Japan, TVR also built a special edition called the Blackpool B340.

Production by year

The yearly figures in English Wikipedia add up to 2,582, while the infobox of the same article gives 2,351 cars in total. The difference has no explanation in the source, so both numbers are shown here. The first full year, 1992, was by far the strongest. Output fell below 100 cars a year from 2000.

Special Edition and the end of the first Griffith

In 2000 TVR announced the Griffith Special Edition (SE), a run of 100 cars to mark the end of production. The SEs were built between 2000 and 2002, and the last one was registered in 2003. By then TVR's range also included the Chimaera (1992–2001), the Cerbera (1996–2005) and the Tuscan (1999–2006).

TVR also developed its own engines in those years. The AJP8, a light alloy V8 named after its designers Al Melling, John Ravenscroft and Peter Wheeler, powered the Cerbera. The Speed Six, a straight-six derived from it, was used in most later TVRs. The Griffith, however, stayed with the Rover V8 throughout.

The Griffith sits in a long line of Blackpool sports cars:

The new Griffith of 2017

After TVR changed hands in 2004 and Blackpool production ended in 2006, a group led by Les Edgar bought the company in 2013. On 8 September 2017 it revealed a new Griffith at the Goodwood Revival. The car was designed with Gordon Murray, whose career is covered on our page about Gordon Murray, and it has a 5.0-litre Ford V8 developed by Cosworth.

Production was planned for 2019 in a factory in Ebbw Vale, Wales, announced by the Welsh First Minister on 22 March 2016. It did not start. In December 2023 TVR reportedly lost its exclusive rights to the Ebbw Vale site, and in July 2024 EVO magazine wrote that it was "a matter of if – rather than when" the car would be built. In November 2025 the TVR brand was reported to have been bought by Charge Holdings.

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