THE FABLED TVR 440 R – ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD!
THIS 215MPH SUPERCAR ALONG WITH TVR #1 FOR AUCTION AT ICONIC AUCTIONEERS SUPERCAR FEST SALE ON MAY 18 AT SYWELL AERODROME, NORTHANTS
2002 TVR T440R. Estimate: £190,000 - £230,000
Recently featured in Classic and Sports Car and a Drive Tribe video, this a one of a kind TVR that one wishes had made it to the Le Mans 24 Hour test.
But it is in fact a homologation road car that will give you chills. It certainly did that for Jeremy Clarkson when he drove it on Top Gear. With just 440HP it outperforms a number of other supercars including a Ferrari thanks to its light weight and carbon fibre body.
2002 TVR T440R | To Be Sold At Auction 18th May 2024 | Guide Price: £190,000 - £230,000
If you are familiar with TVR’s back catalogue, you will understand the significance of this car; just like with the TVR Cerbera Speed 12 sold by Iconic Auctioneers (formerly Silverstone Auctions) at last year’s Supercar Fest Sale, for £601,500, we are thrilled to offer this incredible opportunity to own another genuine piece of TVR history.
The T440R was created so that TVR could challenge at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with the intention of securing the marque homologation and FIA Approval to enter GT1 Class Endurance Racing. Initially named the ‘Tuscan R’ (R standing for Racing), the project began during the late 1990s with the hope that TVR would return to the Circuit de la Sarthe for the first time in more than 40 years. With an entirely new approach required to maintain speeds in excess of 200 mph on the Mulsanne Straight, the T440R was constructed completely by hand with a specialist in-house factory team. Designed with the help of cutting-edge CAD/CAM Technology, the complex and cutting-edge advanced structure was both hugely advanced and expensive to develop, and was like no other TVR built before it, or since.
With a naturally-aspirated engine producing more than 400bhp and weighing just over 1100kgs, the performance of the T440R was quite simply staggering. Sophisticated aerodynamics generated a drag coefficient of a remarkable 0.32 and the production methods included a flat-floor design constructed from resin-filled aluminium honeycomb. This structure was then bonded and bolted directly to the seamless tubular chassis and integral steel roll-cage. A separate, lightweight carbon fibre tub was then also bonded to the structure together with the carbon fibre bodywork adding further strength and rigid reinforcement.
From this, TVR were able to offer (in theory) two road-going versions of this car, the T440R - with a 4.0-litre 440bhp engine, and the Typhon (which was intended to run a sequential gearbox and a supercharger, but never came to fruition). The first of the T440R examples, and always registered as ‘PN02 ZNG’, is the car presented here. PN02 ZNG was actually the second factory pre-production car, the first (a purple, or sometimes silver example) was destroyed at the factory.
PN02 ZNG remained road-registered and was the original factory press car which was used in the marketing literature and brochures at the time and was famously driven by Jeremy Clarkson in his 2002 film ‘No Limits’, which can be viewed on YouTube. Subsequently, the car was factory-converted into an interpretation of the envisaged race car (in DeWalt livery) and was displayed at Le Mans, as a promotional exercise, in about 2004/5, to publicise TVR’s (hopefully) forthcoming involvement in the racing series. Following this, in 2008, it was purchased by a private customer (through ‘Racing Green’), whilst being in the care of TVR specialists since 2014.
Overseen by our vendor, it has now been fully restored by those TVR specialists, and is fitted with a brand new 4.4-litre Speed Six engine built by Dom Trickett at Powers Performance, the same company that developed high-performance engines for the factory. It also has a new clutch, differential, shocks, close-ratio gearbox, suspension and many other parts, all bespoke to the car. The exhaust was built by the talented Ryan Edwards, whilst the door glass was specially re-made by the original manufacturers in Italy! Such has been the attention to detail.
The car has been superbly painted in its stunning original Candy Apple Red and has a newly trimmed, high-quality full leather interior. A comprehensive photo file of the rebuild, plus pictures of the car in its original form at the factory, have been put together to record this historic build.
The provenance of PN02 ZNG is indisputable, valid and can be easily traced; indeed, David Hothersall (TVR CC), an expert on these cars, can vouch for its veracity. This original T440R represents an incredible chance to own an immaculate piece of the TVR story - one of the rarest (but entirely usable) cars in TVR’s history could now be yours.
If you are interested in exploring advertising with us, I encourage you to get in touch. Please feel free to contact me directly, and I will be more than happy to provide you with further information, answer any questions you may have, and guide you through the process.
Nick Aylieff | Classic Motors For Sale | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. +44(0) 2392 160 809 | www.classicmotorsforsale.com
