Memories of TVR

By Paul Richardson

After my father Ken’s Competition Department at Standard Triumph was closed in the early ’60s (due to the Leyland takeover), he was invited to join the TVR sports car company in Blackpool as Competition Manager. The family moved north from Coventry, and I also joined TVR. I worked in the Experimental Department, and I’ll always remember the three years I spent with the company (before it went broke…not my fault) with the fondest of memories.

John Thurner, a designer who joined TVR from Rolls Royce, ran Experimental, and at the time I joined the company, he was in the throes of designing a new spaceframe chassis with fully independent wishbone suspension for the new TVR Grantura. I was still only halfway through my mechanical apprenticeship at the time and was put under the watchful eye of John Ward, a master toolmaker, who had worked in the aircraft industry prior to joining TVR. He was a wonderful man who was meticulous in everything he did, and I will be ever grateful to him for the skills he taught me. I made several production jigs for the new car and also helped prepare the competition cars. As always, when looking back some 40 years, one tends to remember the humorous instances.

The old Lucas magneto made its way to every corner of TVR with shocking regularity. It was usually the charge of Harvey from the engine and gearbox shop. Its last spark was delivered when Harvey wired it to the lock on the store’s door one day. After this particular lunchtime, it was not the storeman who opened up, but no less a man than ALF THOMAS, the company accountant, who’d decided to check on some stock. As Alf put the key in the lock, Harvey (who’d hidden behind the store’s door all lunchtime) gave the string on the magneto a hefty tug. As the current pulsed through Alf’s fingers, he broke into an arm-flailing tap dance on the spot and poked himself in the eye with his clipboard.

It was a regular occurrence to hear the sound of heavy work boots running past our department, followed by a skidding sound as their occupant slid to a halt to open the end door to the main shop. The boots would then clatter furiously down the iron staircase outside and then silence. I said to John Ward one day, “What the hell is that, John?”

“Oh, it’s Hot Arse again,” he jested.

“Who the hell’s Hot Arse?” I quizzed.

“It’s that dabber [fiberglass worker] from the molding shop—the one with the glass eye,” he replied. “He regularly puts too much accelerator in the fiberglass bonder and the mix gets so hot he has to chuck the tin out before it sets the place on fire.” It was a few days later when, during our tea break, the sound of running work boots was heard in the distance. John Ward suddenly shot out of our department and returned in a trice—just before Hot Arse sped by clutching the hot handle of yet another smoldering tin of bonder. As he slid to a halt at the exit door, a thumping sound was followed by a panicked cry of “Oh S—T.” He tore back past our office, now juggling the red-hot tin between both hands. He reached the door at the other end of the production shop, hurled the tin outside and shouted back, “Who the bloody hell locked that other door?”

It was after Le Mans, circa 1962 (unfortunately, our cars went out with overheating problems), when Ninian Sanderson, one of our drivers, emptied a bar. Ninian, who won Le Mans in an Ecurie Ecosse D Type in 1956, was a Scot, and he had a thoroughly impish sense of humor.

To set the stage, a day or two before Le Mans, members of a Scottish army regiment stationed at Minden, Germany, were involved in a violent riot with the locals. So serious was the altercation in Minden that it hit the TV news in Europe and everyone was still talking about the fighting Scots at Le Mans. After the race, Ninian and a few of us were chatting in a bar when trouble nearly broke out again. The bar was full of German racing enthusiasts and at some stage a very nice German, who spoke English, walked over to us for a chat and made the mistake of asking Ninian what he was doing at Le Mans. Ninian retorted in a heavy Scottish accent, “Oh, we’re just down for the day from Minden.” “Ah no,” the German replied, whilst developing one of those nervous, dry-mouthed smiles. He then excused himself and rejoined his group. A minute or so later there wasn’t a German left in the bar—only tables full of partly consumed glasses of ale. Ninian, noticing the sudden mass exit, looked round and retorted, “Was it my accent or just something I said?”

Sometimes the loaves of bread on the chair would attract mice…which were difficult to catch.

The tinsmith at TVR wore boots with a steel insert right around the heels. One day he went up to the welding bench without checking what he was standing on. It was two or three minutes later when I noticed Bob Hallet, the competition shop foreman, doubled up with laughter. Whilst drying his eyes with his handkerchief, he muttered under his breath, “Nip over and take a look at the tinny at the welding bench.” The tinsmith was kneeling on the floor beside his boots hacking furiously at the heels with a hammer and chisel. As he’d been welding, Benny from the chassis shop had arc welded his boot heels to a large metal plate he’d put on top of the duckboard. A couple of days later, Benny found his bicycle welded to a drainpipe.

Scott “Bunty” Moncrief was an Old World gentleman of great charm and charisma who owned his own business selling Rolls Royces. (Under his name on his business cards was embossed “Purveyor of Horseless Carriages to the Nobility and Gentry.”) Now, Bunty also loved TVRs (I think he was a director of the company at one stage) and owned a brown one which he and his wife affectionately called Coffee Bean. One day, Bunty arrived at TVR on one of his regular visits and, as usual, several of us gathered around him for a chat in the car park outside the main offices. A thoroughly obnoxious type then walked by in one of those shiny Italian suits and said, “What a bloody awful color to have a car. It looks like a pile of camel s—t.”

Bunty, who had a marvelous command of the English language, spun on his heels and replied, “If poor wit were s—t, my dear man, you would be incurably constipated, and your manners, like your suit, are as ill-tailored as that of a third-rate politician touting for votes.”

And that is all I have to say about TVR at the moment.