CarBrandLogos archive · TVR · 2005

TVRSagaris

Slashed, vented and unfiltered — the last serious car out of Blackpool.

Photo: Steve Glover · CC BY 2.0

The story

A defining chapter in TVR history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the TVR Sagaris, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Named after a Scythian battle axe, the Sagaris of 2005 was developed from the T350 and took TVR's styling language as far as it would go. The body was cut about with vents, slashes and louvres, and the company's explanation was practical: the openings extracted heat, and they meant a customer could race the car without cutting new ones. The rear window was a single unbroken piece of glass wrapped around the tail.

Sagaris engine · Robin Corps from Crowthorne, England · CC BY-SA 2.0

Design and engineering

Under the bonnet sat the 4.0-litre Speed Six, mounted behind the front axle line and driving through a five-speed manual gearbox to the rear wheels. The car was light, the engine was powerful, and — as with every TVR of the period — there were no electronic driver aids to intervene. Contemporary testers treated it as the purest expression of what the company had been building towards since the Griffith.

TVR Sagaris 2007 Britcar 24h · Colin_Eric · CC BY 2.0

In production

It was also the end. Nikolai Smolensky had bought TVR in 2004, and the reorganisation that followed collapsed within two years. Only 213 Sagaris were built before Blackpool production stopped in 2006, making it the rarest of the modern TVRs and the one that closed the line.

TVR Sagaris - Flickr - exfordy · Brian Snelson from Hockley, Essex, England · CC BY 2.0

At a glance