This car has had a ‘body off’ restoration in 2010, with the chassis sand blasted, repaired, and repainted. The body was also repainted in ‘Rosso Red’ and all the running gear that was put back into the car either being new or refurbished, the header tank was replicated using the current owner’s trade as a metal fabricator in stainless steel. 

This car is an early 3000M with the side vents on the front wings and the Ford Cortina rear lights. The current owner has had the car since 2004 and has clearly given the car plenty of time, attention and financial resource during their custodianship. The time has now come to downsize the collection so the TVR is being put up for sale. 

The TVR has some paperwork that will come along with the car but with the owner being an engineer and metal fabricator, this car was very much a passion project with no intentions to sell. After 18 years with the same owner, the TVR has been through a full restoration and any technical aspects being well taken care off during their time, the car also comes with a full photographic documentation of the work carried out. 

The car has been dry stored in an insulated garage during its post-restoration life, the interior is all complete and the seats are very comfortable with plenty of room inside the car. The rear luggage space is perfect for swallowing up any suitcases or bags for longer journeys, the dashboard looks to have been retrimmed and the gauges and dials were all working as intended on the day of the photoshoot. The interior of the 3000M is relatively small but it’s complete and is finished to a good standard, its certainly somewhere that looks enjoyable to spend time in during a long journey. 

The 3000M has had a respray some 12 years ago and the paint is a nice deep shade, it does have some bubbling coming through which might be a reaction of the GRP underneath, we have tried our best to showcase this in the photo gallery below. 

The chrome is all in good condition only showing minor signs of pitting which may be easily polished out. The sunroof works and moves freely in its rails, and the windows move up and down freely as well. The long sweeping bonnet and the vents give the car its small but aggressive look and the vents on the front wings break up the long flowing lines nicely. 

The car started up without hesitation and was very civilised whilst also sounding fantastic through those twin centre exit exhausts, it idled well and drove without any unwanted sounds, knocks or bangs coming from the drivetrain or the suspension. 

The 3 litre ‘Essex’ Ford V6 gives about 138bhp but with the engine being renewed in the last decade and having a few ‘racy’ bits put on hopefully this number is a tad higher for all those petrolheads. The engine bay looked to be clean and showed no signs of any fluids leaks from what we could see. 

The spare wheel also lives under the huge bonnet and it too looked to be in as good a condition as the rest of the others. 

During the restoration of the TVR, the chassis, suspension components and diff carrier have all been sandblasted, repaired where necessary and finished with two pack black paint. Important to note is that the toggle switch you see to the right of the steering wheel is a manual override for the radiator fan for use when in traffic in the heat. In addition to this, there is a battery isolator switch in the passenger footwell for security and to ensure the battery’s healthy during storage. 

Another massive plus point for the TVR is the upgrade to the Ford type-9 gearbox which is a big upgrade over the standard 4-speed unit, this results in much nicer cruising on the motorways with the engine sitting at lower revs.

As the TVR is an early example, it shares much of its running gear with the Triumph TR6 so parts availability is crossed over from the Triumphs. 

This is a lovingly cared for example of the British sports car that has been well cared for mechanically, it’s an early example of the 3000M and comes from a real enthusiast that enjoyed driving the car and taking it to shows. It would be a perfect example to go to a real TVR fan and one that would provide plenty more years of motoring joy.