I spent Monday morning this week with author Matthew Vale, who writing a book on the Trevor Wilkinson and Martin Lilley TVRs. This will be published by Crowood Press, and so will compliment Ralph Dodds’ book “TVR Cars of the Peter Wheeler Era”.

He is anxious to get this book as accurate as possible and a detailed record of the cars rather than a collection of stories. We began by chatting about the cars and the history of TVR, plus comparing our brochure collections – amazingly he has as many as me! Then we went out to my 3000S turbo, and because the sun was out and it was warm we removed the roof and sidescreens and left them in the garage. But first he had the opportunity to photograph the car with the roof up, and to see the sidescreens in detail. We then went out for a short run, until we came across a deserted pub car park where we held a quick photo session of the car from as many angles as possible.

Once we returned to the house we drank some more tea, and he asked me lots of questions about my 13 years with my car, best drives, worse drive (that was a 260 mile trip on the back of a recovery truck!), and why I have kept it for so long. As Matthew is a serial Lotus owner we had a good laugh about electrics and variable build quality.

He is interviewing as many owners of the different TVR models as possible, he has already spoken to Grantura and Vixen owners and has been in contact with several American Griffith owners. The book should be published towards the end of 2017.

Bildquelle: Oliver Edwards
Text: Oliver Edwards