TVR Griffith Series 200

Jack Griffith had a long-term passion for sports cars and racing, perhaps fueled by his 1947 purchase of a new MG TC. At one point a Jaguar franchise was added to Griffith’s dealership lineup, and when Carroll Shelby announced the Cobra in 1962, White-Griffith Ford was one of the car’s early retailers. Jack even campaigned a factory-prepared 289 Cobra in SCCA competition, but soon realized a career as a racing driver was not in the cards.

Through the SCCA, Griffith met Dick Monnich, a distributor for the low-volume British sports car brand TVR. In the fiberglass-bodied TVR Grantura III, Griffith saw potential, but not enough power. Borrowing a page from Carroll Shelby’s own playbook, Griffith and Monnich shoehorned a Ford 289 V8 into the TVR, with the help of a dealership mechanic and some design work from a young New Jersey engineer named Mark Donohue, who also served as a (brave) test driver.

Jack Griffith came up with the idea for the car in 1964, and secured rights to market the cars in the US. Griffith ran a car repair workshop in the US for patrons such as Gerry Sagerman and Mark Donohue who had both driven a TVR Grantura at Sebring International Raceway in 1962. The concept for the Griffith Series 200 originated during a dinner with Carroll Shelby, where Griffith declared he could build a car that could outperform an AC Cobra.

Griffith’s words to Carroll Shelby came true in 1965, where Tom Lynch in a Griffith 200 beat Shelby’s factory racing Cobras with Ken Miles and Dave Mcdonald at the wheel for about eight laps until a C Production car ended up in the gravel and covered the Goleta race track with rocks, being in first place the Griffith 200 hit the rocks and blew the left rear tire resulting in a DNF!

Unfortunately, the Griffiths – which were known to be a rather scary drive for the uninitiated – also became known for overheating issues, undercharging electrical systems, failing rear axles and leaking gas tanks. This on top of the fact that Griffith bodies were mounted to the chassis with strips of fiberglass