Ultimate TVR Cerebra Speed 12 goes up for auction

If this TVR looks like one of the wildest cars you’ve ever seen, imagine how far-out it must have seemed when it was first offered for sale through a classified ad in Auto Trader way back in August 2003.

At the time, no such thing as a Cerbera Speed 12 actually existed. But TVR’s long-term owner Peter Wheeler had determined to create the one-off after pinning down a wealthy buyer through the advertisement.

But it was going to take more than the wherewithal to part with almost £190,000 to own the Speed 12 – because Wheeler, who died in 2009, insisted on vetting any potential owner to ensure he or she would be a suitable custodian for what, at the time, was possibly the most powerful road car in existence.

The concept for what was originally referred to as Project 7/12 made its debut at the Birmingham Motor Show in 1996 and was intended to be produced as a hugely powerful McLaren F1-killing street machine that would also be adapted for GT1 racing, with the ultimate goal being to compete at Le Mans.

In reality the race cars took part in only a few FIA GT championship events and in the GT2 category of the British GT series – while a single journey home in one of the experimental road cars was sufficient to convince Wheeler that the 7/12 would be just too angry and powerful for normal driving.

“I knew within 300 yards that it was a silly idea,” Wheeler was quoted as saying. “Over 900bhp in a car weighing just over a ton is plainly ridiculous on the road.”

As a result TVR returned the many customer deposits it had received from would-be road car owners and the remaining prototypes were cannibalised to provide parts for the racers.

At that point Project 7/12 (named after the fact that it had a 7.7-litre engine based on two of the straight-six units from the Cerbera Speed Six) might have been consigned to the history books had Wheeler not decided to create this one-off Speed 12 by combining a chassis left over from the aborted road car programme with carbon fibre bodywork from one of the GT racers.

Once the car had been completed and sold, its enthusiast owner continued working with TVR to both reduce its weight and to improve its engine and now, in its current state, it is said to tip the scales at less than 1000kg, to produce 840bhp and to be capable of considerably more than 200mph.

Silverstone Auctions is listing it as ‘estimate on request’ but how much it will make is anyone’s guess – after all, there are still thousands of TVR fans out there.

And some might be willing to pay whatever it takes to own what must surely be the ultimate example of the breed.