Tom Walkinshaw Racing is back as TWR | GRR
The legacy of Tom Walkinshaw Racing is to live on in a new performance car company. The badge on the nose? TWR. The man with the plan? Fergus Walkinshaw, son of Tom Walkinshaw.
It’s a name that’s beloved to this day, even in spite of its disappearance from contemporary motorsport in 2002, following its ill-fated acquisition of the Arrows F1 team in 1996. Once the engineers and preparers behind the likes of the Jaguar XJR sportscars as well as touring cars from Volvo, Rover, Holden and Mazda, it’ll be calling on a different side of its history for this project: the one that got the XJR-15 and XJ220 supercars over the line, and that helped engineer the Aston Martin DB7 and Renault Clio V6. TWR, as was reborn in 2020, will be in the business of boutique road cars.
While no details of what’s to come are yet available, we do have a teaser image that could either be the nose of an ‘80s BMW or Jaguar, or the rear haunch of a wedge-shaped supercar. What’s clear is it wants to do things a little differently, by being ‘an engineering company that will make cars, rather than a car maker doing engineering’, in the words of the boss himself.
“Ever since the original TWR closed its doors I have longed to find a way to continue the family legacy,” Fergus Walkinshaw said.
“This new generation of TWR is first and foremost an engineering company that will make cars, rather than a car maker doing engineering. And that’s an important distinction. We will make use of cutting-edge technology, combining new expertise with traditional craft to build world-class products that make a statement of what this new TWR is all about. We aim to build some truly impressive and innovative automobiles, unconstrained by the rulebooks and styling demands of OEMs.
“We have scoured the performance and motorsport engineering worlds to assemble an incredibly talented technical team, including some members who were part of the original TWR, which just adds to our depth of knowledge and expertise. It’s from this base that TWR can push forward for a bright new future.”
The plan is to ‘work with class-leading brands’ and become ‘a world-class constructor of bespoke high-performance automobiles.’ TWR emphasises a focus on the analogue driving experience, in a marketplace that’s moving in an increasingly detached and digital direction. Sounds good to us. We can’t wait to hear more.
Jaguar XJR-10 image courtesy of Motorsport Images.