[Gallery] The cars of Gordon Murray at 78MM | GRR
Gordon Murray Automotive is on the cusp of releasing its incredible new supercar that could arguably serve as a suitable bookend to 130 years of internal combustion automobiles. That’s how incredible its 3.9-litre 12,100rpm-revving Cosworth V12 promises to be. Seeing it and hearing it for the first time at the 78th Members’ Meeting gives us no pause for doubt.
The T.50 isn’t all engine, though. It’s to be an unrivalled driving experience from peerless engineering, lightweighting and aerodynamics born of a mind hardened by almost 55 years in championship-calibre car design. A selection of Murray’s cars joined the T.50 on track, charting in part the story of his design genius from the past and indeed, with the T.50, the present and future. From the IGM-Ford and IGM T.4 with which he cut his teeth, to the Brabham BT44, Murray’s first F1 car that also happened to be his first winner. Then there’s the Light Car Company Rocket, Murray’s other 1990s road car that weighed just 385kg, or a third of the weight of the McLaren F1.
Once the historic cars filed off track, Dario Franchitti had a couple of laps to open the T.50 up and unleash the fury of that V12 publicly for the first time. It was an almost alien sound, something so elegant and smooth emitting a sound previously the preserve of racecars. It was spinning up, too, given the glazing of residual moisture on the track from the morning’s rain. Quite the sight that has us even more excited for Gordon Murray Automotive’s game-killing supercar to be released into the world.
Photography by James Lynch, Pete Summers and Tom Shaxson.