Then came the Speed 12. Originally a styling exercise, it ended up becoming a race car.   Constructed in traditional TVR style with a body dropped over a spaceframe chassis it wasn't not an ideal format for a race car. Quick access to components just wasn't possible.

From an engineering perspective the Speed 12 wasn't ideal either on a number of counts. The number of welds required to construct the chassis and to include a full roll cage made the geometry of the chassis too imprecise.

Hot Air Problems

The original installation of the V12 engine also caused some engineering challenges. The exhausts were routed down the middle of the car along the transmission tunnel, again as seen with the road cars. This, coupled with the transmission tunnel being a load-bearing part of the structure created two problems. Firstly it forced the driver's seat closer to the side of the car due to the size of the tunnel. This isn't desirable in a race car when side impacts are likely. Secondly the immense amount of heat generated by the exhausts made the cabin unbearably hot in race conditions.

The Cerbera Speed 12 is built in compliance with the latest FIA regulations requiring a flat cabin floor and tubular steel frame. The design TVR have come up with allows the chassis loads to be absorbed around the outside of the space-frame rather than along the transmission tunnel allowing the driver to be moved inboard to a safer position. The exhausts are now routed down the outside of the chassis, to alleviate the problems experienced with the original race car.

Safety Issues

Safety is paramount in the design of these cars. The driver sits within the rigid safety cell with its cross-bracing across the door openings and even across the windscreen. Although the windscreen brace might interfere with the driver's view slightly, it does provide 20% of the rigidity of the cell. A factor also to be considered when designing the cell is that the driver needs to be able to extracate himself from the car in only 7 seconds to comply with regulations.

The chassis is composed of three modules bolted together to form the whole unit. The engine is in it's own frame which can be unbolted and wheeled away once the front bodywork has been removed. The driver then sits in the central cage with the rear subframe hosting the suspension. Even the dry sump is a load bearing component. Rather than just using a bolt on unit, TVR have made their own sump which is actually part of the structure once attached to the chassis. Also included within the chassis is a hydraulic jacking system allowing the car to raise itself off the ground as soon as it is stationary.

Chainsaw

Much work has gone into the aggressive body styling of the Cerbera. A chainsaw was taken to a standard bodyshell and four inches added into each wing. The chassis and body have been stretched by four inches too between the door pillar and the front wheel. The additional width and length made the car look very squat so both the roof line and the boot lid have been raised by forty millimetres giving the shape we see today.

The bodywork is carbon fibre, an expensive yet incredibly light material. It's difficult to work with too. Unlike GRP, carbon cloth sticks immediately to the resin and won't slide around like GRP. Vacuum bags are used on the body sections, sucking out all the air before they're put into the oven. Effort that is well rewarded with a the front section of the Cebera weighing in at 8kg compared to around 22kg for a GRP version. The composite version also weighs in at a hefty £14,000 though!

GRP panels have been used in the construction of the Cerbera Speed 12, to allow experimentation with the body style whilst in the wind tunnel. It's by no means the sleekest car in the world, but with a potential 800bhp in road form, it should hit 100mph in 6.3 seconds and go on to 200+mph. How far over 200mph it will go is open to debate. McLaren's record of over 240mph will take some beating yet.