‘I knew within 300 yards it was a silly idea’

It’s 1996. Damon Hill clinches the Formula 1 World Championship at Suzuka, Oasis play Knebworth, Dolly the sheep is cloned and Independence Day dominates at the box office.

Underscored by the terrifyingly inescapable Wannabe and Macarena, Ferrari unveils the 550 Maranello, Porsche the Boxster and Ford the Ka. Elsewhere, a stricken Lotus pins its hopes on the Elise, developed for less than the cost of the Esprit’s new twin-turbocharged V8. Enter TVR, stage left. From their luminous corner of Lancashire comes something that, even by the firm’s own madcap standards, is pure lunacy.

By the mid-‘90s, the Blackpool-based boutique manufacturer was at its zenith. Under chemical engineer turned eccentric industrialist, Peter Wheeler, TVR had become Britain’s biggest sports car manufacturer and the world’s third, trailing only Porsche and Ferrari. ‘TVR was a benevolent dictatorship. It was Peter’s trainset’, says Ben Samuelson, ex-Head of PR, Sales and Marketing.