Former TVR owner dies

HULL // Peter Wheeler, the man who transformed the fortunes of the TVR car company before selling out to a Russian businessman in 2004, has died following a short illness. He was 64 years old. Wheeler bought TVR in 1981 and presided over the niche car maker's most successful period when the Chimaera and Griffith sports cars proved popular in Britain as well as in Australia and Japan. He left TVR in 2004, having sold the company to Nikolai Smolenski for a reported £15 million (Dh90m), but after sales fell away in 2006, the company went into receivership. Smolenski still owns the intellectual property to the brand and has plans to resume production.