Whilst the 3000 M had never been short of good performance figures, TVR felt the need to build a new supercar, a true successor to the Tuscan SE V8. Whereas the idea of the Taimar had grown first and there had always been a desire to build a convertible, the decision to build this supercar was taken abruptly. Rather than following the usual way of shoehorning a big V8 in the M-chassis, Martin Lilley commissioned a turbocharged Essex V6 from Broadspeed.

Broadspeed had developed it first turbocharged Ford V6 in 1973, but had never gone ahead with production. The heavily modified engine could with surprisingly little effort be mounted in the M-series. With a reduced compression ration of 8:1 and a turbocharger blowing at 9 psi, the fully balanced and blueprinted engine boosted a power output of 230 bhp at 5,500 rpm. At the same time torque raised with almost 60 per cent. The turbocharger would only enter into action from 2,700 rpm, below which the car performed like an ordinary M-series on the road. The turbo conversion was an option on the 3000 M and it became available for the later Taimar and Convertible when they hit the market. The TVR Turbo became the very first British turbocharged production car, although production numbers remained very limited. In total only 63 Turbos were built, of which 20 3000Ms, 30 Taimars and 13 Convertibles.

In 1979 Autocar tested a Convertible Turbo and recorded 5.8 seconds for 0-62mph and 14.5 seconds for the 400 metres sprint. With such credits, the Turbo could outperform the vaunted Porsche 911 Turbo 3 litres in some respects. The M-series Turbo should have been capable of a claimed top speed of almost 140mph. The TVR Turbo undoubtedly returned the supercar builder status back to TVR.