It’s probably safe to say that 90s video game driving simulators like Gran Turismo taught many gearheads about models that would otherwise remain obscure. The average car fan could discover a range of exciting models like the Chaparral 2J 70s fan car, the Suzuki Escudo Pike’s Peak crazy hill climb car, and countless others, including Le Mans monsters like the Toyota GT-One.
Also nestled within Gran Turismo was the TVR Cerbera Speed 12 – a fast, difficult-to-handle and impressive beast; a performance car many arguably had never heard of.
Beginning as a racing machine, this was later intended as a road-legal supercar, yet the project got canned.
Only one official Speed 12 road car got built. DRIVETRIBE on YouTube look behind the scenes to see what’s under the hood that made it so lethal, who owns the car today, and why it’s perhaps one of the most interesting cars ever built, with enough substance to take on the iconic McLaren F1.
What Is A TVR Cerbera Speed 12 Anyway?
TVR initially wanted to compete in the FIA GT1 racing class against the greats of the time such as the Porsche 911 GT1, but their Speed 12 ended up becoming uncompetitive following rule changes, and it didn’t have much of a chance as a race car anymore.
Peter Wheeler, chief of the TVR brand at the time, had decided to direct the project towards road-going versions, but after taking the car out for a spin on the way home, decided against producing any more Speed 12s.
He cited its unsuitability for the public; it was too much of a handful.
It must have been a handful to put the brakes on a potentially-lucrative moneymaker – but there were genuine worries about its safety. In fact, the Cerbera Speed 12 got put on a dyno rated for 1000 hp and broke it: later they estimated the power to be as low as 800 hp, but the reality is that this car sent huge amounts of power to its rear wheels and Wheeler deemed it to be too wild for the road.
Even in the video, we can see that DRIVETRIBE’s host struggles to see out of the small windshield, tiny windows, and can’t make out the extremities of the vehicle. That’s before the engine even goes on.
What Engine Does The TVR Cerbera Speed 12 Have, And Is It Fast?
Luckily, the YouTube team get to check out the TVR Cerbera Speed 12’s engine, and it is a monster: a 7.7-liter, naturally aspirated V12, ostensibly made from two inline-6 engines. You can find it hidden under a removable carbon fiber hood up front, that gets latched down when in place like a race car. 0-60 mph in 3 seconds, and a McLaren F1-baiting top speed of at least 230 mph makes this car wild in its current 840-hp current form. Unfortunately, it was never able to take the McLaren F1's crown as the fastest road car, even if it really was faster.
Perhaps it was the 1000+ hp engine sending its power to the rear wheels, combined with the featherlight 2200-lb weight, with no driver aids, that made this machine impossible to handle.
It sounds epic and angry when the team fire it up, in the garage in England at a specialist workshop. This workshop is on the premises of TVR’s former base of operations, and the owner of the restoration outfit based there explains that he is also the owner of this one-of-one Speed 12.
The TVR Cerbera Speed 12 is almost priceless – but everything has a number nowadays, and the car is going up for auction on May 20th, 2023, courtesy of Silverstone Auctions, so it looks like the current owner is looking to send it to a new home.