TVR Typhon - Development and Proposed Specification

Development and Proposed Specification

Like all TVRs, the car lacked any electronic safety devices such ABS or any kind of traction control believing it to be safer without. Its power was originally planned to have stemmed from a supercharged 4200cc TVR Speed Six straight six engine that powers the Tuscan, Sagaris and Cerbera Speed Six, with the lightly tuned Speed Six 4.0 litre engine and a non-supercharged 4.2 litre engine to service the lesser models of the range - the T400 and T440 respectively, meant to denote their proposed power output figures in brake horsepower. The lesser cars were required for homologation purposes - the T400R race cars were not supercharged. The power was to be put down through either the Tuscan S manual gearbox, or a race-style true sequential gearbox with adjustable gear ratios.

Unlike most TVRs, which were relatively simple tubular steel spaceframes clad with fiberglass panels, the Typhon range had a combination of a steel spaceframe with full roll cage, combined with aluminium honeycomb sections, and a carbon fiber floor, which allowed weight to be kept remarkably low compared to similar cars from Ferrari and Porsche, which were several hundred kilos heavier. The overall weight was around 1100 kg giving it approximately 530 bhp (400 kW) per tonne in supercharged form, comparable to the Ferrari Enzos 484 bhp/ton. The whole chassis was designed from ground up using CAD and CAM software, a first for TVR, who still tended to mainly use hand-draughted and clay sculpted design, reserving CAD for drivetrain design. The Typhon was also the first road going TVR to be supplied with adjustable dampers as standard, enabling customers to fine tune the car's handling characteristics.