You have designed home built specials, tiny city cars and motorcycles. You have designed and led design teams responsible for multiple Formula One world championships including what remains to this day the single most successful F1 car of all, the McLaren MP4/4. You have designed supercars for other people, relaunched an entire brand of British sportscar (TVR) thought to have gone for good and you have developed your own manufacturing process that could revolutionise the way manufacturers build cars. And, of course, there is your masterpiece, the McLaren F1, the car that advanced road car performance more than any other before or since, did so while offering space for three and their luggage, yet was no bigger than a Porsche 911. Never intended to race, it won Le Mans at the first time of asking, conferring upon McLaren an accolade up until that moment held only by Ferrari. You are 71 years old.
Time, you might think, to pause and reflect on a life’s work quite exceptionally done. And he has. He kindly invited me to his private One Formula exhibition at Dunsfold a week ago today and walking past over 40 of his designs left me in no doubt as to the extraordinary contribution Gordon has made to both the road and racing car arenas. Other than the above, highlights for me included the Duckhams Ford sports racing car he designed as a complete unknown aged just 24 in which his buddies Chris Craft and Alain de Cadenet drove to 12th place at Le Mans in 1972. Then there was the Brabham BT46B fan car (which contrary to popular belief was never banned because Gordon pulled it before it could be, not least because the replacement he was working on looked like it could pull more g than the driver’s head could withstand…) and the Light Car Company Rocket be developed for Craft. I well remember driving a Rocket to North Yorkshire and to this day I don’t think I’ve driven a more focussed, incisive or involving road car.
But now he has done that, far from donning pipe and slippers, Gordon Murray is embarking on a new grand adventure, creating for the first time a car under his own name or, to be precise, the IGM brand – Ian Gordon Murray. Actually and to be completely accurate it’s not the first IGM as his very first two-seat specials were IGMs too, but this one is likely to be rather different.