One of the craziest TVRs ever made is up for grabs: the T440R

The history of this particular TVR is too knotty to untangle concisely, but strip away all the ups, downs and often sideways history, and this is a road-going version of a car former boss Peter Wheeler wanted to race at Le Mans in the GT1 class.

It began as an idea in the late Nineties, when the project was named Tuscan R. But it was not a Tuscan. For such a high-profile assignment – including 200mph+ on the Mulsanne Straight – TVR designed this nutjob using CAD/CAM tech from the ground up and built it completely by hand.

It featured a flat floor built from resin-filled aluminium honeycomb which sounds delicious. That was bonded and bolted to a tubular chassis and steel roll cage. Next came a carbon fibre tub glued on, followed by more carbon fibre in the shape of bodywork.

Hiding inside was a naturally aspirated 4.0-litre TVR engine with 440bhp – a good engine – powering a car that weighed just 1,100kgs. The car pictured here was apparently the second of two factory pre-production T440Rs (indeed there was another one planned called the Typhon that got a sequential gearbox and supercharger). The first one was “destroyed at the factory”.

It was displayed at Le Mans in proper racing livery in the early Noughties as a promotional exercise, which of course amounted to… nothing. It was later bought by a private customer, and since 2014 has been “in the care of TVR specialists”.

The current vendor has gone to great lengths to fully restore it via said TVR specialists. There’s a new 4.4-litre Speed Six. New clutch. Diff. Shocks. Gearbox. Suspension. ‘Many other parts’. There’s a new exhaust, and specially remade door glass that hails from Italy.

It’s been resprayed and retrimmed, gets a full rebuild file including pictures of its original form. Iconic Auctioneers reckon it’ll go for anywhere between £190k and £230k when it comes up for auction on 18 May. Feeling brave?