25 years later
03/31/2023
Several dozen cars have passed through my hands over the course of my life and found a place in my garage. On average, I probably kept most of these vehicles for less than four years, and sold some of them after just a few months. The big exception to this rule is the TVR 3000 S, built in 1978, which I bought in the spring of 1998 and still own today.
When I took it over, it wasn't even a "youngtimer" yet and it shone in red (Subaru red to be precise), because the second owner had had the car repainted.
I left it that way for the first two years, then the color changed back to silver métallic as part of a partial restoration. This was exactly the color in which the open-top sports car had posed for the sales brochure of the Swiss importer Heinz Kobel.
As part of this work, the roadster - in this case, this is not a fashionable term, but a real car with windshields and an emergency top - was also given two exterior mirrors. On the brochure, the TVR had no exterior mirrors at all.
Over the last 23 years, there has been very little to do to the three-liter roadster, and it regularly passed the veteran's test with flying colors. I haven't driven the car excessively, in fact the mileage today is only a modest 24,000 higher than 25 years ago.
Why have I remained loyal to this car for so long? In fact, I was already dreaming of a 3000 S when I was just learning to drive. I even received an offer for the same car from Kobel back then, but my father answered the phone and he wasn't at all keen on the idea of buying an English car with a plastic body. I myself was still at school and the unaffordable adventure ended early.
Around 20 years later, I was able to buy the car, whose interesting past I only found out about later, as my third TVR. And since then I have enjoyed every drive in the sports car with the beautiful sounding Ford Essex V6 engine, which has proved to be very reliable over the years.
We published a comprehensive report on the 3000 S some time ago.
Let's see how the story continues. Next, I would like to reunite the car with its first owner, but that's another story ...
