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This three-time Le Mans winner drives four rings every day.
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Films:
1963 TVR Grantura: Eye Candy
Interesting to see how the limited production, light weight coupe and roadsters out of England were mostly fiberglass in this era. Whereas the Italian ones, especially those made around Milan were all hand-hammered aluminum. The north of Italy had hundreds of years of continuous development in repoussage and chasing, going back to the parade armor of the renaissance. England, not so much.
Robert, someone told me the Italians are good panelbeaters since they started maken armour for the Roman Legions. But don’t forget the use fiberglass was the new thing in the days. So maybe the British were just a bit more ahead of their time back then. And the traditional panelbeating is a labour intensive procedure and therefore costly. I can only guess that British wages were a lot higher than the Italian in them days. The British could save a penny or two that way.
Martin, the fiber glass lends itself to a different family of shapes than does a body produced by hammering and rolling. By the time the Grantura came along the English were getting really good at these FG bodies. I thought that the Lotus Elite and Elan were exceptional designs. And this TVR is extraordinary. And of course these were precursors to carbon fiber panels.
Martin as I read about this car further, and look at other TVR examples of this kind of construction, this really is a lot like a superleggera build. These cars have a tubular frame carrying major loads. The lightweight fiberglass body is attached to that at many points. In terms of the geometry of the structure this is like an Italian coupe (berlinetta) of the period, with FG swapped for the hand-hammered panels. IMO this was an advanced design, and pointed the way towards carbon fiber.
