TVR is a small car manufacturer now known for producing some of the most ferocious production cars imagineable. But there was a time when they had one product, the Grantura, that was fairly typical of British sports cars of the fifties and sixties in that it was supplied with an engine no larger than 2 liters. It also followed tradition in being enormous fun to drive. Where it differed from so many other sports cars was in its looks - it was quite pretty.

A bit upright in stance, the Grantura yet manages to look like a miniature Gran Turismo car - a poor man’s supercar, perhaps. The original design for the rear was somewhat old-fashioned but, in the sixties, they chopped off the tail and made it a lot more fashionable. With that abrupt cut-off and the addition of the inevitable Ford Cortina rear light clusters, the car was given a new lease of life.

Also in the sixties, Jack Griffith, an American motor dealer, squeezed a Ford 4.7 liter V8 under the bonnet and suddenly the Grantura had muscle. It is in Jack’s honor that the later TVR Griffith is named. The little car must have been quite a handful with that much power available but it was to set the trend for all later TVRs.

By the end of the decade, TVR had set their sights much higher and began a line of very powerful and fast sports cars that eventually made the company famous. But I still have a soft spot for the old Grantura. Without it, we would never have seen such monsters as the Tuscan, the Chimaera and the Cerbera.