TVR Project 7/12 - Lost Prototype

The late ‘90s/early ‘00s are considered by many as British sports car manufacturer TVR‘s golden era.
With models such as the Cerbera, Griffith, Tuscan and Sagaris, TVR represented a serious threat to estabilished supercar brands such as Ferrari and Lamborghini.

But the TVR we’re looking at today is way more interesting than the aforementioned models.

During the late ‘90s, TVR decided to develop a GT1 racing car.
That car’s road going version’s prototype was presented at the 1996 British Motor Show as the TVR Project 7/12.

To say that it was mind blowing is simply reductive.

The Speed 12 (as it was also known) had a very aggressive design, sporting large air intakes, a long hood, a huge rear wing, O.Z. wheels and an eye-catching metallic purple paintjob.

But obviously, the looks were only half of what made the Project 7/12 awesome.

Under the long hood sat a massive 7.3-litre, N/A V12 engine with a claimed power output of over 600+ hp which, combined with the fact that the car weighed only 1,100 kg, made it seem like a proper McLaren F1 killer.

The estimated price tag for the Speed 12 was around $214,000, although the car sadly never hit production.

During the course of its development, the Project 7/12 turned into the more well-known Cerbera Speed 12, and the 7/12 itself disappeared.

The Cerbera Speed 12, the final version of the Project 7/12, was entered in the GT1 championship, but after just a handful of races an abrupt change in the regulations forced TVR to modify the car for the GT2 British GT, where it obtained several victories, but also showed reliability issues.

The road-going version of the Cerbera Speed 12 never entered production, since TVR’s president at the time, Peter Wheeler, found it to be “too wild”. All deposits were then immediately refunded.

A lot of people remember the Cerbera Speed 12 for its incredible performance figures as well as its story, but very few people know about the prototype that gave it birth: the TVR Project 7/12.

Only two 7/12s were ever made. The first one was a non-running mock-up that was shown at early official shows, then went back to TVR’s Blackpool factory, where it was abandoned. The second one was another mock-up was that was completed with its own mechanical parts but lacked the engine.

The 2nd mock-up was later turned nito a fully working GT1 racecar, known as the TVR Cerbera Racer

The Racer’s engine was a 7.7-litre, 48-valve V12 with dry sump lubrication and constructed of steel not aluminium or cast-iron that poduced 800 hp and 650 lb-ft at 5750 rpm and reached a top speed of 245 miles per hour. The transmission was a 6-speed Hollinger manual gearbox and the body was carbon fibre over a tubular steel chassis.

Following the change in the GT1 championship’s regulations, the Cerbera Racer’s engine was repurposed for the GT2 Cerbera Speed 12.

The TVR Project 7/12 was included in several videogames: Test Drive 4 (1997), Test Drive 5 (1998), TOCA 2 Touring Cars (1998), Test Drive 6 (1999), Gran Turismo 2 (1999), World Driver Championship (1999) and Sega GT (2000).

Finding high-quality pictures of this car is very difficult, so sorry if some of the images you see here are low quality.