TVR Cerbera

Our TVR

We have sold our own gorgeous red 1998 Cerbera to make way for our new Griffith.

The Cerbera has TVR's own 4.5 litre AJP8 engine which, according to TVR's own figures, has 420 bhp on offer at 5,500 revs and a massive 380lb ft of torque.

The car makes a wonderful deep, rumbly noise with lots of pops and bangs when you take your foot off the accelerator and is a real joy to drive. The massive torque gives the car a muscular feel and the car accelerates hard in pretty much any gear.

As you can see from the pictures, the car had been re-sprayed red and has a cream interior with red inserts, which looks quite classy.

Upgraded shocks mean the handling is nicely sorted and it really does drive nicely.

This is a proper grand tourer in which you can travel and arrive in style.

Plus room in the back for little ones......

TVR Cerbera Driving Experience

The Cerbera is a right hand drive 2+2 seater rear wheel drive sports car with a 5 speed manual gearbox.

The space available for rear passengers is minimal and really only suitable for small kids. However, with the passenger seat moved forward, still leaving leg room in the front, it is possible to sit a reasonably sized third person in the rear. So the car is really a 3+1 coupe!

Due to the race-engineered specifications of the engine, it requires carefully warming up each time the car is driven. This involves observing a rev limit for a few minutes until the oil temperature is sufficiently high enough to do its job properly. In practice, particularly during the summer, by the time you have found an open road the car is usually ready to show you what it can do.

The boot space is reasonable, with sufficient space for a couple of decent sized bags, after all it is supposed to be a Grand Tourer. The back seats are suitable for a couple of small soft bags too.

As with other TVR models, the Cerbera has power steering but no other driver aids or air bags.

There are disc brakes all round, which are pretty good, but no ABS. Therefore care is needed to ensure proper braking distances are allowed for, especially when wet or damp on the road.

Also, with no traction control there is only driver control preventing the rear wheels from breaking loose from the tarmac.

Don't be put off by this though, as driving the Cerbera is a fantastic way of experiencing supercar performance at an affordable price.

TVR Cerbera History

The Cerbera running prototype was shown at the Birmingham Motor Show in 1994.

It was the third car designed during the Peter Wheeler era after the Griffith and Chimaera and was his first coupe.

On the surface, it essentially looks like a hard-topped version of the Chimaera but this disguises the true identity of this hard core coupe.

This was the first car to be fitted with the new V8 engine that TVR had developed and built in-house. The Speed 8 , also called the AJP8, has more in common with an F1 engine than a standard road engine and is a completely different character from the previous Rover V8 engines TVR had been using.

In terms of bhp per litre, the AJP8 had one of the highest specific outputs of any normally aspirated V8 in a car.

The Cerbera was also the first car to receive the new Speed 6 engine which TVR had also developed and built themselves. This model was set up slightly softer and is better suited to the Grand Tourer label and at £41,100 was priced the same as the 4.2.

But for a real white knuckle experience, the Cerbera 4.5 can't be beaten. For an extra circa £5,000 you could get your hands on a 'factory stated' 420 bhp. The 0 to 60 dash is over in under 4 seconds and 100mph reached in around 8.

It is still one of the fastest cars you can get your hands on today.

The model was 'facelifted' in 2000 with many small design changes and again in 2002 including improvements to suspension components.

The last models were made in 2003, although a one-off was built and auctioned by the factory in 2006.