I REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME I SAW A Griffith. It looked astounding, modern yet classic, like a traditional sports car that had been through a gemstone tumbler. It’s been years since I’ve been up close with one and as the garage door goes up, I’m in awe all over again.
Great designs usually go through a process where they start out looking new and fresh, then become familiar and start to look a bit dated, and then, after about 20 years, they assume icon status. The Griff appears to have skipped the awkward bit in the middle and gone straight from new to icon.
In fact, I suspect that somewhere in a dusty, forgotten attic of the former TVR Engineering works on Bristol Avenue, Blackpool, is designer Damian McTaggart’s original styling sketch for the Griffith, ageing horribly; flat tyres, crusty alloys, headlamps lolling on the ends of their wires and bodywork crazed like the face of a 90-year-old Greek fisherman. The Picture of Damian’s Griff, if you will. Except that this landmark car in TVR’s history, credited to McTaggart, was a team effort, naturally involving enigmatic owner Peter Wheeler and, crucially, his righthand man, engineer John Ravenscroft.
The owner of this gorgeous, metallic blue Griff, Carl Elston, talks me through the start procedure, and when I turn the key… , the garage, the street, the whole damn estate rocks to the rumble and
