These are the nine best TVRs

The start of TVR as anyone under the age of about 95 would recognise it. Available with no fewer than two different Ford engines, two Coventry Climax engines, or the B-series unit used by the MGA.

It was a golden era for British sports cars in America, and Granturas were imported by a bloke called Roy Saidel. Not as impressive as the main British dealer's name - H & J Quick. Or an early proposal for the car's name: Hoo Hill Hellcat.

Coincided with the arrival of Martin Lilley as new owner and a move to Bristol Avenue premises. Also coincided with TVR's eye-catching fondness for draping scantily clad ladies over their motor show cars, which aroused - steady - the ire of the SMMT.

On sale for seven years, but with three distinct generations in that time, the first Vixen used up the leftover MGB engines from the 1800S, while the later cars used a Ford four-cylinder with 92bhp.

Pretty if period wedgy late-1970s Tasmin morphed gradually into the TVR that would straddle the '80s and '90s.

Former chemical engineer Peter Wheeler had acquired the company, and Ford's Cologne V6 was bumped in favour of Rover's redoubtable V8 - in 1983, 190bhp was a load of grunt, and certainly enough for the 350i's chassis to cope with. Except that it wasn't, which is where the 420 SEAC came in touting 300bhp from its bored-out and revised engine.

Also featured a Kevlar/fibreglass composite body, and dinner table rear spoiler. Barking.

The very essence of modern British sports car, the Griff arrived in 1991 and exited in 2002, managing the world's longest drift throughout the whole of the 1990s as it did so.

TVR's prolonged fettling of the Rover V8 resulted in 340bhp, and as it weighed barely more than a tonne we're talking a big-cojones power-to-weight ratio. Some of these cars may have crashed.

TVR's doozy, a slightly more cultured, softly suspended GT take on the hairy-arsed Griff. Started life with a comparatively civilised 240bhp, ended up with 100 more, via 4.3 4.5 and 5.0-litre incarnations.

Wheeler's dog Ned said to be responsible for the distinctive bonnet slashes. Still a better car designer than some humans we could name.

As Wheeler was about 20ft tall, all hail the vaguely ludicrous looking yet entirely wonderful Cerbera. It also had the distinction of being the first 2+2, and more significantly the first TVR to use the company's own engine, the AJP6 and AJP8.

This commitment to going its own way was equal parts barmy and inspired, but put severe financial strain on the company. The throttle travel was so long the pedal passed through several different time zones, but helped compensate for the Cerbera's amusing surplus of power over grip.

And the absence of traction control. TVR didn't do traction control. God no. That was the devil's doing, that was.

The Speed 12 is the wildest TVR that never really was. The story goes that when boss Peter Wheeler took a prototype for a shakedown blat, he pronounced it too lairy for public consumption and canned the project. The mind fairly boggles. Originally conceived to go racing in the febrile mid-’90s GT1 endurance championship – with Le Mans firmly in its sights – the Speed 12 had two Cerbera Speed Six engines conjoined, and with further tweaks from TVR’s pullover-wearing engine genius John Ravenscroft produced enough grunt to destroy the company’s dyno. Or so the story goes. It was certainly in the 800bhp ball-park… One car did escape the Wheeler veto, and according to sources has an 830bhp-per tonne power-to-weight ratio. Not just the wildest TVR, the wildest anything.

Co-starred with John Travolta and Halle Berry in forgotten Hollywood heist flick Swordfish (the film in which, fact-fans, Miss Berry got a $500,000 bonus for, ahem, disrobing).

But the Tuscan is better remembered as arguably the best-looking TVR of all. And one of the best to drive, once they'd sorted the initially wayward chassis. Red Rose version made 380bhp. Waywardness not an asset here.

The swansong for the last iteration of TVR. Even deep into the Noughties, TVR somehow gave ABS, ESP and airbags the swerve, as they were all counter to the company's adrenalised philosophy.

Sagaris was named after an ancient Greek battle-axe, and its super-fast steering and narrow slip angles made it appropriately knife-edgy on the race-track. Focused the mind like few other cars, ever.