Industry News
TVR issues statement on future of production
26th April 2006
Following TVR's announcement last year that it was to discontinue production at its Bristol Avenue factory in Blackpool by 2007, and the lay-offs of workers on 24 April, the company owned by the Russian multi-millionaire Nikolai Smolensky has issued a statement saying it has brought forward its plans to coincide with the cessation of its current lease, which would otherwise require long-term renewal.
TVR is to relocate some of its assembly process to a more suitable facility, the exact details of which it says cannot yet be released.
Following assembly relocation, TVR cars will continue to be hand-built using mostly proprietary components, but the firm says, with considerably more advanced technology and processes: “This will mean a significant and more consistent step-up in precision, quality, reliability and durability, as well as in compliance with international requirements.”
The statement extends TVR’s thanks to all of its loyal staff at the Bristol Avenue factory, as well as its thoughts to all those who have had to be laid-off. The company is confident, however, that “this difficult decision is the right one to secure its long-term stability and foothold within the competitive, low-volume sports car industry, as well as to continue to improve its product for the domestic and international marketplace”.
TVR adds that the logistics arm of the business will also be modernised to improve the availability and delivery of replacement parts, and says all current authorised dealerships and service centres will be unaffected by the move of production premises.
TVR also claimed that its sales had not slumped last winter, as some media reports had suggested; demand, its statement said, “had remained fairly constant for a number of years, and the company remains financially stable and highly optimistic about its future”.
TVR, which designs and builds its own engines, says it is on schedule for achieving Euro IV emissions approval, which will enable it to sell more concertedly into Europe, and then into US and Middle East markets; it is exhibiting at the forthcoming British International Motor Show, for which it promises “several surprises”.
(www.tvr.co.uk/news)
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