Future TVRs are set to be manufactured in Wales, as the reborn British brand joins Aston Martin in setting up a new production facility in the country, it has emerged.
The fundamentals of a deal are said to have been agreed for TVR to set up a base only a few miles away from the St Athan super-hangar that will house the production line for Aston’s forthcoming DBX crossover.
The newly reborn TVR brand, which has been saved by former computer games developer Les Edgar and other investors, is planning to use a production process devised by ex-F1 designer Gordon Murray to make a car powered by a Cosworth-sourced V8 motor. The engine fired up on the test bed several months ago – another reason why an announcement on the South Wales factory is understood to be imminent.
This is not the first time TVR has considered a factory in Wales. Under its previous owner, Russian Nikolai Smolensky, the company was linked with an earlier attempt to set up manufacturing lines at St Athan. That proposal was axed in 2013 when the TVR brand faded away, but there have recently have been suggestions that Edgar and ‘new TVR’ management have revisited the St Athan deal, exploring the possibility of occupying a small chunk of the hangar – in effect, sharing the building with Aston Martin.
However, sources in Wales indicate that an as-yet-unspecified facility nearby is now the clear front-runner from the three options originally considered. Official TVR sources declined to comment on the matter, but industrial incentives in Wales would give the company an attractive cost base that could not be matched by any sort of return to the Blackpool region that played host to so much of the firm’s history.
It would also offer the firm the potential to tap into the burgeoning supplier base that will be built up to service Aston’s DBX production line.
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