The Hound of Blackpool: 30 Years of the TVR Cerbera

Getting into a TVR Cerbera for the first time requires a brief orientation. There’s a button under the steering wheel to start the ignition, another sequence for the immobilizer, and a steering wheel covered in switches for the lights, horn and wipers where you’d normally find stalks. The doors open via a hidden button under the mirror because there are no exterior handles. Once the engine catches, it settles into an idle that sounds nothing like a refined road car is supposed to sound. Named after the three-headed dog guarding the underworld in Greek mythology, the Cerbera turns 30 this year. It has not mellowed with age.

TVR and the Road to the Cerbera 

The company’s name comes from its founder. Trevor Wilkinson set up shop in Blackpool, Lancashire in 1946, starting with repairs before moving into building his own cars in the early 1950s. For the next few decades TVR stayed in a fairly defined lane: small, light, rear-wheel-drive sports cars assembled by hand in low volumes, running engines borrowed from Ford, Rover and others. Peter Wheeler bought the company in 1981 and that model continued, most notably with the Griffith and Chimaera, both of which used tuned versions of the Rover V8.