A Life in Car Design by Oliver Winterbottom

Author:Oliver Winterbottom
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Transportation / Automotive / General
Publisher: Veloce Publishing Ltd
Published: 2020-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

The prototype at the Last Drop Village, with the name logos covered for John Baillie’s brochure research. (Courtesy TVR Engineering Limited)

The clutch release became the subject of study shortly before production started, as the Triumph TR7-sourced pedal box used a hydraulic system, which was not compatible with the mechanical linkage on the Ford clutch. I had devised a method of holding the clutch inner cable to allow the outer cable cover to release the clutch arm. It worked very well on the prototype, but, to operate properly, needed a large clearance hole in the firewall. Although a substantial rubber gaiter was used to seal it, there was the potential for major noise and water leakage. Martin Lilley thought there might be a better way.

Enter Broadspeed: Broadspeed was well known to the company, as it built the turbocharged engine for the 3-litre TVRs. These had a hydraulic release system concentric with the clutch output shaft, which allowed the whole system to become hydraulic. This worked well – until the seals, which had to endure much heat and output shaft rotation, gave up their fight to contain the fluid. Eventually, the manual system returned.

Bamber Bridge was busy building the (only) pre-production car which emerged, in bright red, in November 1979. The factory at Bristol Avenue was completing the last of the Taimar range, and preparing to build the Tasmin. I redesigned the factory layout to have a chassis assembly section, with a number of stages, and a sub-assembly area alongside.

The body mount stage was aligned with the area set aside for electrical harness construction. TVR was unusual in making all its own wiring, as major industry suppliers were uninterested in low volume producers. A cut cable store was built in the form of a wheel, from which the loom build operators could select parts easily. Unfortunately, it was not feasible to stock many different-coloured cables, so they were all black, with marker flags at the ends.

Once the fuel tanks and wiring were installed in the body, it was lowered onto the completed rolling chassis. The car was then completed with the connection of all systems, glazing and interior trim. The first car down the line was in Champagne Gold, and was built to European, left-hand drive specification.

With no Production Engineering Department, we sent staff from Bamber Bridge to ‘educate’ the Bristol Avenue staff on how to assemble the car. The Body Moulding Shop had already built about 40 bodies ahead of assembly operations, so that was settling down smoothly. My recollection of this period differs somewhat from the section of a recent book, which quotes Stuart Halstead as saying that “the cause of the production troubles was rooted in the inefficiency of operations at the Bamber Bridge research and development unit. He explained: ‘Oliver Winterbottom’s responsibility there had been to develop the Tasmin right up to the stage where it could be built to a high standard by the guys at Bristol Avenue. But Oliver’s efforts left much to be desired. There weren’t even enough engineering drawings to substantiate the design.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.