Trevor Wilkinson

Trevor Wilkinson (1923 to 2008) was a British automotive engineer and the founder of the sports car maker TVR. Born in Blackpool, he left school in 1937 without qualifications and began an apprenticeship at a local garage. After the Second World War he established Trevcar Motors and converted an Alvis Firebird into a racing car, and in 1948 he co-founded TVR Engineering with Jack Pickard. The company name was a shortened form of his first name, Trevor. The first car, the TVR1, used a tubular steel chassis and parts from other vehicles. By the late 1950s he had settled on a formula of a lightweight tubular chassis, fibreglass bodywork and components from larger British makers, which produced the Grantura of 1958. He stepped back from daily operations in 1962, the company was sold in 1965, and he then ran Grantura Plastics, a glassfibre supplier to the motor industry. He retired to Minorca and died there in 2008 aged 85.