One of my favorite car brands is TVR, owing to its upstart attitude and strong affinity for sticking overly powerful engines in very light-weight chassis. The fact that this recipe continued on from its early hardscrabble days all the way through the modern era is testament to a company remaining committed to a certain ethos, a rarity in any industry today. This poor thing is a battered and bruised 1968 Vixen, which is described as a stalled race car project and listed here on eBay with no bids as of yet.
The seller is asking for an opening bid of $2,000 with a reserve, so there’s a chance that style of auction is spooking potential suitors for this major undertaking. The listing is short on historical data about how this little TVR ended up in such a sorry state, but it’s apparent someone lopped off the roof at some point for reasons unclear. The listing description features an assortment of included parts, repairs needed, parts missing, and acknowledgement of a roll-over incident that did a fair amount of damage.
The seller mentions that a whole host of parts are included with the sale, such as this MGB engine and transmission, along with a spare block. Other parts of value include a rear plexiglass window, Cortina taillights, six TVR wheels (four mounted on tires), complete independent rear suspension, complete front suspension, two roof panels, dashboard, gauges, and more. Of course, there’s plenty missing as well, such as windows, seats, upholstery, door handles, and emblems.
It’s heartening to see so many parts stored in separate bags and seemingly organized in a half-decent state. I suspect the seller of this TVR came upon some sort of a storage unit clean-out and is doing his best to ascertain what’s included and what’s not, while not necessarily being a TVR expert (note the model name isn’t even included in the listing; please correct me if I’m mistaken about this being a Vixen). While I love old TVRs, this is going to be a massive labor of love – and for that to happen, I recommend a no reserve auction.
Forgotten is appropriate. I think I might forget it too. If you’ve got lots of time and money you could get it back to a race car but you might be too old to race it by the time you got done. Too bad. They are neat cars. If you really want one go to wirewheel.com. Hayes has plenty of race and street versions.
Despite the bad pictures, I can see why this project stalled. Yikes!
It would be nice to know the chassis number. It could be a series 1 Vixen as the first few came with MGB engines. It is clearly a short wheelbase car with body bonded to the chassis. It could be a Mk4/1800 car also. The bonnet is not original to either of these models.
TVR did not start by putting “overly powerful” engines into their lightweight and flimsy chassis until Jack Griffith on Long Island NY showed them how-to do it.
I owned the 36th Griffith 200 built. At the time, the only production car faster than a Shelby Cobra.
I went to the ebay site and this is a 1966 MK4 1800 (with non original bonnet). I should have checked before I wrote the previous comment.
I’d just burst into tears looking at this … um … project. No sir …
Oofta!