I would have thought they'd sell loads of TVRs in the US - thats what I meant as
"american"
Now you put it that way I suppose it's British enough. I think you need to be a
certain type of person to pull it off though... especially the new ones.
Personally I prefer the Lotus approach to things. Especially the old Elan - in
fact
thats the car the previous owner of my Spit bought one to replace it.
On another thought - I drove about 10 miles over the weekend - just doing the
usual
chores - I saw 7 MGs. At one point I saw 4 on the same road going in the other
direction! Im so glad I bought a Triumph now. But where are all the owners? I'd
like
to think of them as more rare and precious than rusted or broken. The cars that
is -
not the owners :)
I also saw about a million MX5s - give or take one or two. And the same number
of
911's
TTFN,
James
Richard Gosling wrote:
> To sell a car in America you have to take it through a whole bunch of
> processes to ensure it meets all the criteria for safety, emissions etc.
> etc. Even if the car were capable of passing all of them without
> modification (and there will always be a few tweaks that are necessary) it
> is a damned expensive business - so far TVR must have decided that they
> wouldn't sell enough cars to justify the expense.
>
> I know Lotus had to jump through a whole bunch of hoops to get the V8 Esprit
> through when that came out 5 years ago (I worked for them at the time), and
> that was just for a new engine in an existing car - I'm sure it hasn't got
> any easier.
>
> Having said that, I've heard rumours that TVR are considering moving into
> the US market, especially since a Tamora featured in that John Travolta film
> 'Swordfish'.
>
> I would dearly love to own a TVR - any of the range. They may not be LBCs,
> but are still very British I think - consider them the descendants of the
> Austin-Healey 3000, the Jensen Interceptor, the AC Cobra (admittedly a car
> with some US blood in it too), or even, going back far enough, the big
> Bentleys of the '20s. Is that British enough?
>
> Another British trait - they have performance to rival Porshe, Ferrari and
> Maserati at fraction of the price, a trick that Jaguar once used to great
> effect with the XK range...
>
> I'll keep waiting for that lottery win!
>
> Richard & Daffy
/// spitfires@autox.team.net mailing list
/// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
|