TWR (Tom Walkinshaw Racing) has a history of winning motorsport and helping Jaguar develop some of its coolest supercars. The revived TWR is positioned as an engineering company that will make exclusive sports cars; the first model will premiere soon.
The original TWR company was founded in 1975 by British racing driver Tom Walkinshaw, and specialized in the design and production of racing cars for various segments of motorsport. TWR reached the peak of its development in the 80s, during the period of cooperation with Jaguar: the sports prototypes Jaguar XJR-9 and Jaguar XJR-12 developed by TWR won the legendary Le Mans daily marathon in 1988 and 1990, respectively.
Inspired by these victories, Jaguar rushed into the major league of road supercars and gave the world two outstanding models — the XJR-15 and XJ220, both of them were developed with the participation of TWR, but if the XJ220 was still mostly a factory product, then the XJR-15 project was almost entirely supervised by TWR, although the formal manufacturer was the JaguarSport subsidiary founded by Jaguar and TWR.
Jaguar XJR-15
JaguarSport was disbanded in 1994 after the purchase of Jaguar by Ford, which at that time did not have large ambitions in motorsport. TWR then won Le Mans twice more in partnership with Porsche (in 1996 and 1997), and also became the main contractor for the development of the Renault Clio V6 mid-engined hot hatch and the Aston Martin DB7 sports car.
What ruined TWR was its very costly, but not very successful, performance in Formula 1 after the purchase of a controlling stake in the Arrows team in 1996. By 2002, TWR was completely exhausted, left without money and was liquidated; only the Australian division survived, which continued to participate in regional touring car racing — today it is the Walkinshaw Andretti United team.
In 2010, Tom Walkinshaw died at the age of 64 due to cancer. The British history of TWR was interrupted here, and now a new chapter begins. Fergus Walkinshaw, son of Tom Walkinshaw by his first brother, as it turns out, back in 2020, together with business partner John Kane, founded a new company, TWR, headquartered in Newbury, Berkshire.
Today, the new TWR is publicly available for the first time. announced itself and announced that it would revive the spirit of the old TWR in a new capacity: using past experience and modern advanced technologies, TWR will produce elite sports cars, but first of all, the company positions itself as an engineering bureau, ready to provide services to third-party companies. Teaser of the first TWR model ( title photo) under its own brand does not say anything, it is not yet clear whether it will be an electric car or a sports car with an internal combustion engine, but the revived company promises details in the near future.
Between from the TVR company, which is often confused with TWR, there is no fresh news; its revival, to put it mildly, has been delayed: last spring, TVR got an investor in the person of the Chilean corporation Ensorcia Metals, but for now this is the last official message on the company’s website.
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