The TVR Typhon is a 2-door coupe from TVR, built from 2000 to 2006, in the decade of stability control, dual-clutch gearboxes and the first serious hybrids. Under the bonnet: 4.0 L or 4.2 L TVR Speed Six I6. Graham Browne drew it.
The background
The TVR Typhon is a sports car produced by the British company TVR in their factory in Blackpool between 2000 and 2006. It is the fastest production TVR ever built (the earlier TVR Cerbera Speed 12 was never put into production), and only three were ever built. All are currently in England.
In the late 1990s, Peter Wheeler began the project that would fulfil his ambition to see TVRs at Le Mans. An entirely new car was going to be needed. It would need to be built using modern composites, be more rigid than any previous TVR and designed for 200 mph (322 km/h) on the Mulsanne Straight, to be stable and above all, to win. And so began what started labelled as the TuscanR (TVR T400R) and finally resulted in the 200 MPH+ Typhon the fastest and most expensive production car in TVR's history.
The engineering
Power comes from 4.0 L or 4.2 L TVR Speed Six I6. It weighs 1000 kg. It shifts through a 5 speed manual / 6 speed sequential. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Where it sits
Its family tree is legible: assembly was at Blackpool, England, United Kingdom. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Hyundai Santa Fe, the BMW X5, the Honda S2000 — show what else the money bought that year. Its TVR stablemates include the TVR 3000S and the TVR 350SE.