Alex Unleashed on Cars- TVR Cerbera (The Blackpool Rocket)

 


The year was 1996 and a certain someone had lined up an Aston Martin Vantage, a Porsche 911 Turbo, Lotus Esprit V8, Caterham 7 JPE, Dodge Viper RT/10 and a TVR Cerbera for a 1 mile drag race. In the end, the ballsy coupe from Blackpool took a decisive win. I bring up this story because it’s just one of several events that propelled the Cerbera to fame. The second was a year later, when the TVR faced an even bigger challenge than a turbocharged Porsche, a Panavia Tornado jet. Yes, long before Richard Hammond raced a Bugatti Veyron against a Eurofighter, Top Gear Magazine had a TVR race a Tornado. And lost. But not by much!

These 2 events for me sum up the Cerbera, an underdog from (until then) a small brand from a seaside town capable of great things, taking the fight to cars far more expensive and exclusive. The general consensus among road testers was you’d need at least £300,000 to beat a Cerbera in a straight line.

When first being conceived, the Cerbera was originally going to have the Rover V8 that powered both the Griffith and Chimaera when it was first shown in 1993. But, after BMW bought Rover, Peter Wheeler, then owner of TVR decided that he didn’t want “anything German” in his car, and also wanted to offer something to other manufacturers. And so TVR created its first engine, the AJPV8. The engine is the second most important part of the Cerbera, the other being its aforementioned escapades. 

The AJPV8 engine was based off the engine used in the TVR Tuscan Challenge series, and despite early teething troubles, the engine provided 360 BHP in 4.2 spec and a quoted 420 in 4.5 spec. Though like most TVR figures, it’s widely disputed. The engine is also notable for being similar to an F1 engine in that like the Lotus Esprit V8 it’s a flat-plane crank which means it not only revs high but has a distinct engine note different from most traditional V8’s.

A couple of years later, TVR launched the Cerbera Speed 6, the first model to be powered by its in house 4 Litre Straight 6, this engine would later power all future TVR’s. The Speed 6 was only 10 BHP down on the 4.2 V8 but was more well received by the press despite not being as ballistic in a straight line.

There’s 1 more impressive showing from the Cerbera I’d like to bring up and its Top Gear Magazines “Million Quid Mega-Test” from issue 111 December 2002 (I mentioned this in the Zonda entry). Despite being the oldest car there, in 4.5 Red Rose spec, the Cerbera outran all but the ballistic Pagani Zonda and Lamborghini Murcielago in the acceleration tests and comfortably crushed the Ferrari 575 and Porsche 911 Turbo. Whilst it didn’t win overall, losing out in the braking, in-gear acceleration and lap time tests, it definitely showed that even an old timer like it can still keep up with the young ones through pure lightness and high power. In the end it did score a nomination for Best Value Car at the magazines 2003 awards but was pipped by the Citroen Xsara Picasso.

In the end the Cerbera would make way for the Sagaris with a true final Cerbera model being made and sold at auction in 2006. But even though TVR’s future may still be in limbo we can still look at back the great escapades of possibly its greatest ever model.

Year Produced: 1996 - 2004

Engine: 4.0 Litre Straight 6 – 4.5 Litre V8

Top Speed: 170 - 193 MPH

Power: 350 – 440 BHP

Torque: 320 – 402 Ib/ft

0-60: 4.8 – 3.9 Seconds

Weight: 1130 KG – 1060 KG

Price: £39,910 - £48,850

Rivals: Lotus Esprit V8, Dodge Viper GTS, Porsche 911 Turbo ‘993/’996, Aston Martin Vantage

 

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