The 50th car from the Crown-recognised icon.
Legendary automotive designer & engineer Gordon Murray has finally announced that he’ll have a new supercar out by 2022. With the car itself in advanced R&D stages and already previewed to select clients, the new car will be designed & built entirely by Gordon Murray Group, overseen by the CBE-holder himself.
The T.50 aims to spiritually succeed the iconic McLaren F1 and move the game on in every possible way. It’ll retain hallmarks like the mid-engined rear-drive layout (eschewing the more trendy configurable all-wheel drive), and put the driver in the middle, flanked by two passenger seats. It’ll also be powered by a V12 that’s uncluttered by any form of forced induction, and it’ll wear a body bearing a ‘reductive’ design approach, with the usual smattering of aerodynamic addenda substituted by a downforce-inducing fan at the rear, the first such road car to feature Murray’s rather innovative ‘fan’ system.
Said to be “inspired by [Murray’s] 50 years at the pinnacle of Formula One,” in the words of the man who’ll lend his name to it,
“An unflinching dedication to lightweighting, highly-advanced active aerodynamics, and world-leading standards of advanced engineering will ensure that the T.50 rewrites the supercar rulebook. Our experienced team is applying the same uncompromising approach to design & engineering that shaped every facet of the [McLaren] F1, and they are able to deliver substantial improvements over that car in every meaningful way.” – Professor Gordon Murray, CBE
Two years after Gordon Murray Automotive was announced, the T.50 will be the break from performance-car convention that the industry rather desperately needs. It’ll return the central-drive position that made the F1 so remarkable, and offer up a naturally-aspirated 3.9-litre V12 that’ll be designed to rev up to 12,100rpm. Power is said to be rated at around 485kW and torque at 450Nm, which is not to be scoffed at considering there’s no forced induction.
But one of the hallmarks of the T.50 will be its design, which will use innovations explored in the Brabham BT48B Formula One ‘Fan Car,’ like the 400mm underbody fan to manage airflow beneath the car. In doing so, the T.50 promises to bear a pure & uncluttered design language, a result of designers being given freer reign thanks to the de-restriction of aerodynamic concessions.
With just 100 to be made and each to set one back roughly £2-million (or around $3.65-million at the time of writing), the Murray T.50 will, like the F1, be the reserve of only the most prestigious (and deserving) car collectors and connoisseurs around the world. And with “no specific targets for acceleration, top speed or lap times,” the T.50 should be the purest expression of Gordon Murray design, and see just how a heavyweight of the performance car space will reinterpret the position of the industry as a whole.
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