Next Door: A Conversation with Mike Brewer and Brian Hosfield

Mike Brewer is joined by Mr Rabbit to take a look at a truly unique car that has caught his eye - a rare and exotic one-off TVR. The car is owned by Brian Hosfield, who built it himself and has been working on it tirelessly over the years. As they walk towards the car, Mike can't help but notice the level of detail and craftsmanship that has gone into its design and construction.

Brian Hosfield's Engineering Next Door

As they approach the TVR, Mike notices that Brian has taken a very different approach to building this car compared to his own business, which focuses on restoration work. "He's built it from scratch," says Mike, "and he's really taken the time to get everything just right." The result is a car that is both beautiful and functional, with every aspect of its design and construction meticulously considered.

The TVR Wraith Rolls-Royce

As they take a closer look at the car, Mike notices that it has an impressive pedigree. "This car has been driven by some pretty famous people," he says. "Winston Churchill was in it once, and the Queen has also had the pleasure of sitting in this very car." Brian explains that the TVR Wraith is one of only a few examples of its kind, and that every aspect of its design and construction has been carefully considered.

The Challenge of Restoring a Car

Mike explains that restoring cars can be a difficult business. "If I charge £1800 an hour," he says, "I'm lucky to get 25 hours out of it." This means that even if everything goes perfectly, the end result may not necessarily be profitable. Brian agrees that this is a common problem in his line of work, and that quality always comes first.

The TVR's Performance Capabilities

As they continue to chat with Mike, he asks him about the TVR's performance capabilities. "It's got some amazing specs," says Mike. "If you take off the wing, it could potentially reach speeds of over 240 miles per hour." However, Brian warns that this may not be entirely reliable, and that the real-world performance of the car may be more like 220 miles per hour.

The Decision to Sell

After some time spent admiring the TVR, Mike asks Brian about why he has decided to sell it. "Two is been a lot for a long time," says Brian, "and I've had to make a tough choice between running two businesses. My heart is actually more with the purple and PewDie car." He explains that the red one is very special, and will only be brought out on very rare occasions.

The TVR's Future

As Mike prepares to leave, he asks Brian about his plans for the future. "I'm going to focus on the paper one," says Brian. "It's a usable car that I can take to events throughout the year." The other car will remain in storage, but will be treated with great care and respect.

A Conversation with Mike Brewer

As Mike steps away from the TVR, he reflects on the conversation he had with Brian. He mentions that he made a point about the similarities between this car and an Aston Martin Vulcan - especially the track-only AMR Pro. The two cars may seem like vastly different machines, but they share some interesting design similarities.

The Future of Performance Cars

As Mike looks to the future, he wonders what other cars from this era of performance would be interesting to feature on his channel. He invites his viewers to suggest their ideas in the comments section below, and promises to keep an eye out for rare and exotic machines like the TVR Wraith.

A Rare Fact About the TVR

Finally, Mike mentions a fascinating fact about the TVR - that certain parts of its design were protected by something called helicopter blade tape. This was because ppf (preservation primer) didn't exist at the time, and Brian had to use alternative materials to protect his car's finish. It's just another example of the ingenuity and resourcefulness required in building a rare and exotic machine like this TVR.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign tourismo dreams come true welcome to the only road going TVR Cerberus B12 ever made oh conjured from tvr's racing escapades in the 1990s the original speed 12 was very much purely a racing car built to take on the mighty McLaren F1 GTR in the FIA GT1 championship it was initially called project 712 denoting 7 liters spread over 12 cylinders pure prototypes like the 911 GT1 quickly made the speed 12 redundant in that category of racing but tpr did have plans to make a few road going versions they created numerous road-going prototypes but then TVR boss Peter wheeler took one home one night and decided it was far too wild and brutal for the public so he came back in in the morning and decided to can the project all of the road going prototypes were split up for spare parts for the race car project apart from one in 2003 TVR shocked the World by revealing this single road-going Cerberus B12 made to look like a normal server but really underneath it was completely bespoke completely race car to contain that V12 Fury under there there are good looking cars and then there are brutal function over form cars and then there's this thing I don't think there's ever been anything else like it the McLaren F1 is one of the all-time greats and the Jag xj220 is my personal favorite car of all time but this thing where do you even start well I guess I'm an engine guy so let's pop the Bonnet and see what's happening under there and when I say pop the Bonnet I mean tear the entire front end of the car off thank you holy Jesus ladies and gentlemen this is a 7.7 liter 840 horsepower naturally aspirated V12 Racing Engine there's debate online whether this thing is simply two TVR speed 6 engines welded together when there's other people that say it's a completely bespoke unit that barely shares a part with the straight six what we do know is that the put this V12 on a dino back in the early 2000s that was rated to around a thousand horsepower and this engine completely blew up that Dino so much so that they decided to tune the engine in two halves two straight sixes to then combine they decided to detune it to 840 horsepower although the current owner says they've had up near 900 horsepower absolutely insane so this V12 if the dyno technology had been there back in the day could have been even more mad than it ended up being let's say a thousand horsepower with a bit more work this car only weighs a thousand kilos otherworldly I love how far back the block sits it's way back from the front axle and it's dominated on top and these enormous carbon air boxes that are then connected by this slithering plenum in the middle a beautiful piece of engineering and then kind of in contrast all of that you've got these incredibly rudimentary but also functional intake pipes that snake over the front suspension and are fed by that front ducting and then down here we've got the the tubular exhaust system we've got three on top and then three way down tucked underneath but they all feed in down the side of the car and I imagine meet somewhere down there then you've got this huge Billet up front here that's got so much stuff attached to it the suspension there's oil lines going all through it and I think my favorite bit of this whole design the oil filter is right out front in the middle kind of like the car's chin if you have a front end crash your oil filter is going to be the first casualty I keep comparing it to the McLaren F1 but this thing is so much more brutal and organic than that car I absolutely love it speed 12 is made up of a tubular space frame combined with carbon Kevlar body work and then some aluminum honeycomb throwing in too in here it is pure race car we've got a sequential shift which is flat on the way up and then clutch and blipping on the way down the middle pedal operates steel racing brakes or all four corners there are some bits of TVR in here though this Central console the shape of it is very road going TVR then some of these buttons I imagine have come straight out of a normal server also down either side with the doors open you can see that the exhaust clearly curls around either side of the car then comes down the Sills I imagine that bit gets very hot when on the move the driver's eye view is pretty incredible I've just got the instrument umbilical in front of me I cannot see the front of the car I can just see a bit of the front right wing I cannot see the left wing at all I just basically have the windscreen wipers and then you'd be guessing where the front of the car is my nurse yeah I mean that's that's tiny that's not doing much this car is brutal even the windscreen itself is Tiny it's so narrow best thing on the road would have been manic I understand where Peter filler was coming from I personally think the best view of this car is the rear three-quarter a wing this thing makes a GT3 car look like a little Club sport racer and then it's got the classic cerebral art on it but it's got a twin art it's this car's got two horses one two that The Edge on it and look at that let's take a closer look at that actually now that we can see right in here the back of the car is engineered exactly the same way as the front at the front you've got Billet and then tubular chassis and then here you've got tubular and then Bill it and then everything else on the car just kind of hangs off of that structure and then this diffuser it's enormous if I come back to where the rear axles which is here it's a good meter and a half from it a proper long tail design you've got these oil coolers just simply bolted to it I think this could be my new favorite piece of carbon fiber ever you can keep your paganis and Koenigseggs this wins many of you guys will recognize this car as a hero of Gran Turismo it first featured in Gran Turismo 3 and then was a Mainstay through four five and six the stats in the game initially say 809 break horsepower not 60 and 3.5 seconds but most interestingly a top speed of 230 miles an hour that would have taken it very close to the McLaren F1 back in the day and TVR never discounted the fact that the speed 12 could have done over 240 and therefore made it the fastest road car in the world in the game through some tuning or some simple slip streaming the virtual version of this car has been seen over 300 miles an hour scary stuff something I didn't quite realize until I got here this is Love Field and Abbott TBR specialist that this is also the site of the old TVR Factory do you remember that Top Gear episode where the guys that the Ode to the British sports car they ended up here and we're looking at all the abandoned bits of the factory well this is one of the body shells this is one of the fiberglass bodies from a TVR that the guys were looking around this red brick building is one of the final bits of the original Factory that's still around because sadly through this fence that there is the final remnants of the main TVR Factory it's now been completely demolished and is being redeveloped into new industrial space it's so sad to see thankfully stuff like that speed 12 is still kicking around and what was really nice is the district TVR Club just turned up this morning to come and check out the car as well and have a chat with us filming so that was really nice but if you look at the news recently with TVR as well there's new incarnation of TBR isn't doing great either they were going to launch that V8 Griffith and then they were going to launch an EV and it's all gone very quiet so that is old TVR new TVR isn't looking much better where's that brand gonna go in future for me the cerebral is my favorite TVR the Tuscan is cool and the Sagar s is a pretty slick piece of kids but the muscularity of the cerebral takes it for me I quite fancy only one at some point probably not this one a straight six would do me this car is going under the hammer at Silverstone auctions Supercar Fest sale on the 20th of May and their estimate is between 4 and 500 000 pounds and to me this thing is worth every penny of that the guys here keep it in race ready condition both cosmetically and mechanically and on that front it'd be a shame to come all the way up here to Blackpool and not have this thing do its thing start up a cerebral speed 12. been told this black button here ignition pumps are going it's telling me pick you bastard thank you now hold down the black button with a tiny bit of throttle here we go foreign you can keep your McLaren F1 that is an engine oh my God holy what just happened so Graham you're the owner of these B12 the only road legal car from Factory but some people may have seen other speed 12s out and about like this one here so if that is the real deal for are these other ones I would call this car the sister car okay and essentially where it was derived from was I built all the spare parts left over from the TBR Factory when it's shut okay and that included various chassis various iterations of body shells that hadn't been used on the red car sure and then I embarked on a project to build a sympathetic version of a Cerberus B12 okay so you this is a proper speed 12 chassis but the engine is what so it's an Aston Martin Vanquish V12 okay so there's a six liter six liter yeah which we then somewhat modified okay so individual throttle bodies it's dry sumped lots of other little goodies in there motec ECU Etc okay so if that car is the proper chassis in the proper engine are the other speed 12s out there like this so they'll maybe have the chassis but there'll be some other engine put in there there is a company and the name of them is TBR not to be confused sure they got hold of an original chassis that being the center tub section of a speed 12. they then built their own version they managed to get hold of the original molds for the vehicle so they have the correct panels okay and then they did essentially the same as me so they've bought their own Vanquish engine they've done their own version of that I don't think it's been done to quite the same level this has but they've kind of done a similar thing these are the only two correctly registered they've got the correct chassis the correct registration numbers and currently you won them both and yes luckily I happen to own them both that's not a bad Accolade that so this is your place Love Field and Abbott yes and clearly you do a lot of TVR work but there's also some very special other stuff in here what do you guys specialize in well we actually started this business during lockdown okay and there was a business here previously that catered really solely for tvrs and then we took over the premises we have law field engineering next door yes run by Brian hosfield he built this car okay he effectively designed it built it and they did everything you're Mr rabbit and I'm here with it okay so we've got law field engineering next door and then this business is lowfield and Abbott okay and we've taken the business in a slightly different direction so now we bring in a lot of very old early role choices we get Bentleys we get Porsches we get lots of stuff coming in cool but we tend to Do complete restoration work I was going to see the tvr's in there I mean they've been stripped right back to their chassis yeah and they're completely refreshed correct yeah everything's new the wiring's new everything I mean there's a wraith Rolls-Royce upon the stand at the back yes I see that that's got amazing pedigree so so Winston Churchill's been in it cool the Queen's been in it nice there's a long list of people that have been in that car he has amazing pedigree no wonder you can afford two speed twelves what the hell it's straight strangely strangely and we make we don't make the money out of this business the issue with this type of business is that um 100 quality comes first the problem Beyond everything so if I charge 1800 pounds an hour in effect the number of hours we put in we're lucky to get 25 pound an hour wow so everything that goes out the door is perfect but you're learning this business that if everything goes out perfectly don't make the money okay if I wanted to make the money it wouldn't be so great it's will you go to the end degree I think Richard at the smallest Cog would sympathize a bit with that yeah it seems like a very similar situation because every shirt Line's got to be right and that's difficult yeah yeah yeah yeah okay so how did you end up with that car right there how did you end up buying that one of one TVR the previous owner became aware of my project I'm not exactly sure how but TVR was a small world yes and then he approached me I think initially he wanted to find out what I was up to which is great because we could share certain ideas and discussions progressed and um I ended up buying it okay so I had both but having two is a bit crazy I have to be honest and clearly you've driven that car so are the claims true do you reckon that thing could have done over 240 miles an hour if you take the wing off it's geared to do 240 miles an hour wow but with the amount of downfalls you get off the wing it would probably not work okay you you might get to 220 or something I don't know but if you really want to see how it'll go you take the wing off sure and then you really want a straight Road so I guess my final question is why are you selling it um two is been a lot for a long time and I don't think I can really share my time Faithfully between two I run a business 100 miles away from here so I'm gonna focus on the paper one and I had to make a tough choice between the two and my heart is actually more with the purple and PewDie because I'm so involved in building it yes I love the red one don't get me wrong but I kind of get it like this is a usable one you're gonna have this out at events yeah throughout the year versus that one that's obviously a bit more you know you'd be a bit more precious with that that one just feels a bit too special yeah so it comes out on very special occasions this one I come to the factory we line it up we take it out no issues okay well thank you so much for having us and I guess good luck with the sale thank you very much filming with this truly special one-off car today is something that I'm probably going to remember for the rest of my life Matt behind camera actually made a really good point if you look at this car from certain angles and take in the mechanical makeup of it it's actually very similar to the Aston Martin Vulcan especially the track only one the AMR Pro do you agree anyway today has got me thinking what other cars from this epic era of performance in the 90s and early 2000s would you like to see on the channel next tell me in the comments below if you like this video give it a thumbs up I've been Mike and don't forget to subscribe to drivetribe PS I've been told a really cool fact there's certain bits on this card that look like they're ppf'd it's actually helicopter blade tape because ppf didn't exist back then so TVR wanted to protect it they used tape from helicopter blades TVR were 20 years ahead of ppf kind of cool foreign\n"