TVR Cerbera Speed 12 On eBay: British Engineering History For Sale
Back in 1999 TVR – then a British-owned, "build 'em in a shed" enterprise - unveiled a new concept car at The Motor Show. Called the Cerbera Speed 12, it took an existing model from TVR's range, the Cerbera, and turned an already aggressive car into a steroid-pumped, snarling chunk of metallic insanity. Sprouting spoilers, air-dams, deflectors and wings, hunkered low to the ground with its 7.7-litre engine pumping out a dyno-snapping 960bhp, the engineers talked in hushed, proud tones of a 240mph top-speed. And then TVR's owner pulled the plug.
Five Cerbera Speed 12's were built, four racers and one road-legal. Or, more accurately, the bits required for a road-legal car; when an enthusiast bought the Speed 12 back in 2003 it was non-running, and took 2 years of work in collaboration with engineers and TVR themselves to get it back on the road. Since then it's been a model, launching console racing games and staring in car magazines... and now it could be yours.
If I sound like I'm talking about it in hushed tones, that's because I'm in awe. I can remember the first photos appearing in Top Gear magazine and thinking "wow, I'd love that car". There was a flurry of activity before the news came it would never get made, including a list of celebrity buyers rumoured to have stumped up the estimated $300,000 production cost. As of writing this, it's hovering at £151,300 ($297,000) on eBay.
Current performance figures stand at 880bhp and a top-speed of 247mph. Let's not ask about the fuel-consumption figures, eh?
