Griffith 400

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Griffith
Griffith 400
Griffith 400
Griffith 400
Sales designation: Griffith 400
Production period: 1964-1965
Class : Sports car
Body versions : Coupe
Engines: Petrol engines :
4.7 liters
(147–199 kW)
Length: 3600 mm
Width: 1664 mm
Height: 1194 mm
Wheelbase : 2171 mm
Empty weight :
Previous model Griffith 200
successor TVR Tuscan V8

The Griffith 400 is a two-seater sports car manufactured by Grantura Engineering or TVR Engineering in Great Britain together with Griffith Motors in the USA. The model based on the TVR Grantura was intended for the North American market, on which it should compete with the similarly designed AC Cobra sports car . Here it replaced the Griffith 200 , from which it differed mainly in a modified body. A version intended for the UK market was sold under the TVR brand as the TVR Griffith 200 .

History of origin

The development of the Griffith 400, like that of the predecessor Griffith 200, goes back to the US car dealers Jack Griffith and Dick Monnich. Monnich had been the North American importer of the British TVR Grantura Coupés since 1961, which were produced in Blackpool by TVR Cars and Grantura Engineering from 1959 . While the Grantura were factory-fitted with four-cylinder engines from BMC , Coventry Climax or Ford of Britain , Griffith installed American eight-cylinder engines with 4.7 liters from Ford in the externally unchanged vehicles. The model called Griffith 200 appeared in 1963 and competed in the North American market with the AC Cobra developed by Carroll Shelby , which was based on a similar concept. By the end of 1964, a total of around 190 vehicles had been built for the US market.

In November 1964, TVR in Great Britain replaced the previous Grantura Mark III with the 1800S , which had a newly designed rear section with largely unchanged technology. Griffith took over the new TVR model for the North American market and also equipped this version with the large Ford eight-cylinder engines. The new coupe was named Griffith 400 in the USA. It was only available for one year. In the second half of 1965 there were prolonged strikes by dock workers on the American east coast, which temporarily brought the trade carried out by ships to a standstill. The 1800S coupés sent from Blackpool to the USA could not leave the ports, so Griffith Motors actually received no more vehicles. Griffith stopped paying his British supplier in the following years, so that a central source of income for Grantura Engineering was lost. In September 1965 Grantura Engineering was insolvent and was liquidated.

After Martin Lilley took over the production rights in November 1965 and resumed production of the 1800S with the newly founded company TVR Engineering, a few eight-cylinder sports cars in the style of the Griffith 400 were built. They were primarily intended for the British market. Individual specimens are also likely to have made it to the USA. In January 1967 the successor Tuscan V8 appeared , which TVR marketed in the USA without Jack Griffith himself. Instead, Griffith Motors concentrated on the Griffith 600, a steel-bodied sports car developed in collaboration with Frank Reisner and Intermeccanica in Turin , which had no technical relationship with TVR models.

Model description

Griffith 400 with Manx tail and Ban-The-Bomb taillights

The Griffith 400 has the standard body of the TVR 1800S made of glass fiber reinforced plastic (GRP). It differs from that of the older Grantura models and that of the Griffith 200 mainly in the design of the rear end. Instead of the previous round rear with the indicated wings, the car has a crested rear with a tear-off edge at the upper end of the end. The short and cut-off looking tail of this model is called Manx Tail , referring to the tailless cat breed Manx in the British-speaking world . Also new were the round, one-piece rear lights from the Ford Cortina , which in Great Britain are jokingly called Ban The Bomb Lights after the logo of the British peace initiative “ Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament ” . Other changes affect the rear panoramic window, which is now larger, and the side bulges above the rear wheel cutout. From a technical point of view, the Griffith 400 has an improved cooling system compared to its predecessor with a larger cooler and two electric fans.

The Griffith 400 is powered by an eight-cylinder Ford Windsor 289 engine with 4727 cc (289 cubic inches) displacement. The engines of the 400 corresponded to those of the Griffith 200. They delivered either 195 bhp (145 kW) at 4400 revolutions per minute or as HiPo ( High Power ) 271 bhp (202 kW) at 6500 revolutions per minute. Like some late examples of the Griffith 200, the Griffith 400 was equipped with Salisbury differential gears designed for the Jaguar E-Type ; some cars also received differential gears from the Chevrolet Corvette C2 . This required further changes to the chassis and frame. Because the Salisbury differential had a longer gear ratio than the BMC final drive provided in the Griffith 200, the 400 took slightly longer to accelerate from 0 to 96 mph. However, the top speed was higher.

Production and prices

By the fall of 1965, 59 copies of the Griffith 400 had been made. After that, the Griffith factory in Plainview, Long Island , New York was closed. The retail price of the Griffith 200 was $ 4,995 in the United States in 1965.

The British version: TVR Griffith 200

With Manx rear: British TVR Griffith 200, 2nd series; identical to the US Griffith 400

While Griffith Motors completed the sports cars intended for North America in the USA, Grantura Engineering and TVR Engineering in Blackpool produced some technically identical vehicles for the British market. The British versions of the Griffith 400 were marketed there as the TVR Griffith 200 (with the addition of TVR). There is therefore no British TVR Griffith 400 (with the brand name TVR). The production volume is small; some sources estimate about 10 British specimens.

literature

  • David Culshaw, Peter Horrobin: The Complete Catalog of British Cars 1895-1975. Veloce Publishing plc., Dorchester 1997, ISBN 1-874105-93-6 .
  • Ralph Dodds: TVR. Cars Of The Peter Wheeler Era , The Crowood Press, Ramsbury 2015, ISBN 978-1847979971
  • Dieter Günther: Kraft-Wagen. History of TVR Griffith , in: Oldtimer Markt , issue 6/2008, p. 10 ff.
  • John Tipler: TVR , Sutton Publishing Ltd., Strout, 1998, ISBN 0-7509-1766-0
  • Matthew Vale: TVR 1946-1982. The Trevor Wilkinson and Martin Lilley Years , The Crowood Press, Ramsbury 2017, ISBN 978-1785003516

Web links

Commons : Griffith 400  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matthew Vale: TVR 1946−1982. The Trevor Wilkinson and Martin Lilley Years , The Crowood Press, Ramsbury 2017, ISBN 978-1785003516 , p. 90.
  2. ↑ Mark Hughes: TVR Grantura, Griffith, Vixen & Tuscan . Classic & Sportscar, issue 1271989, p. 43.
  3. ^ A b c Matthew Vale: TVR 1946−1982. The Trevor Wilkinson and Martin Lilley Years , The Crowood Press, Ramsbury 2017, ISBN 978-1785003516 , p. 101.
  4. ^ Matthew Vale: TVR 1946−1982. The Trevor Wilkinson and Martin Lilley Years , The Crowood Press, Ramsbury 2017, ISBN 978-1785003516 , p. 18.
  5. ↑ Overview of the history of Grantura on the website of the TVR Owners Club (accessed April 12, 2019).
  6. ^ Rainer W. Schlegelmilch, Hartmut Lehbrink: English sports car . Könemann, Cologne 2001. ISBN 3-8290-7449-2 , p. 386.
  7. ^ Matthew Vale: TVR 1946−1982. The Trevor Wilkinson and Martin Lilley Years , The Crowood Press, Ramsbury 2017, ISBN 978-1785003516 , p. 72.
  8. ^ Matthew Vale: TVR 1946−1982. The Trevor Wilkinson and Martin Lilley Years , The Crowood Press, Ramsbury 2017, ISBN 978-1785003516 , p. 95.
  9. ^ Matthew Vale: TVR 1946−1982. The Trevor Wilkinson and Martin Lilley Years , The Crowood Press, Ramsbury 2017, ISBN 978-1785003516 , p. 96.
  10. ↑ Richard M. Langworth: Encyclopedia of American Cars 1930–1980. New York (Beekman House) 1984. ISBN 0-517-42462-2 , p. 668.
  11. ^ Dieter Günther: Kraft-Wagen . History of TVR Griffith, in: Oldtimer Markt, issue 6/2008, p. 14.
  12. ^ Matthew Vale: TVR 1946−1982. The Trevor Wilkinson and Martin Lilley Years , The Crowood Press, Ramsbury 2017, ISBN 978-1785003516 , p. 93.