Sunday Drive #14 – Gordon Murray – part 3.

On Your Own Terms

In this third and final part of my articles on Gordon Murray, I’ll focus on the independent projects this engineer has created for brands apart from McLaren, and most importantly, for himself.

Pocket Rocket

In 1991, Gordon Murray and Chris Craft founded the Light Car Company. The first and only car – or more appropriately, road-going race car – was the Rocket model.

The name strongly aligns with Murray’s philosophy, and the vehicle is the lightest sports car in history, weighing just 385 kg. It was powered by a Yamaha motorcycle engine paired with a sequential gearbox. While the power output may seem modest (143 hp), the power-to-weight ratio is better than that of the Porsche Cayman GT4 (296 bhp/tonne vs 386.5 bhp/tonne in the Rocket). The design echoes Formula 1 cars from the 1960s, but differs in that it may accommodate two people (in tandem). The car was in production from 1991 to 1998, with 55 units made. Here’s a review from two young automotive journalists:

Gordon Murray Design

Gordon Murray’s romance with McLaren came to an end in 2004. Three years later, the designer founded Gordon Murray Design, an engineering, and design company, immediately flooding the market with innovations. The first of these was a three-seater (naturally) city car – the T.25. This wasn’t intended as a serious production model, but rather a halo project for the iStream car production system developed by GMD.

The T.25’s core principle: implementing Formula 1 technology into a city car. The result: low weight and high structural rigidity (due to vast use of carbon fibre). Moreover, its production was economical (a factory 80% smaller than a standard car plant) and transportation efficient (“flat-pack” style – allowing a standard container to hold up to 12 times more cars than medium-sized sedans). Powered by a three-cylinder engine from a Smart car, its power-to-weight ratio was comparable to that of a standard hatchback.

Like a Griffith from the Ashes

As mentioned, the T.25 was a halo car for Murray's iStream production process. The technology is intended to be bought by both large manufacturers and smaller firms seeking economical solutions.

The first car for a third party to be produced on the iStream production line was to be the TVR Griffith. An impressive prototype was unveiled in 2017 – a sports coupé powered by a Cosworth-tuned 5-litre Ford Coyote V8 engine producing 500 hp.

An impressive car, but with one downside – it hasn’t gone into production to this day.

OX Delivers

In other words, the spirit of the McLaren F1 on the African roads.

One of the first clients of Gordon Murray Design was the Global Vehicle Trust, a foundation aiming to motorise developing countries in Africa and Asia. The OX is an off-road truck with a central driving position, low weight, and high payload capacity (1,900 kg).

OX is a flat-pack project—quite reminiscent of… Ikea. The vehicle is delivered in a flat box and can be assembled in 12 hours by three people in local workshops. A standard container holds six kits in its folded form (compared to two ready-made vehicles). Once again, Murray emphasised economical transportation, as he often highlights in interviews that transporting air in containers is environmentally unfriendly.

Heavy Artillery

A faith will out. Gordon Murray didn’t last long as a supplier of production solutions – he decided to build a supercar himself. In 2017, alongside Gordon Murray Design, Gordon Murray Automotive was born, and work began on the spiritual successor to the McLaren F1.
On August 4, 2020, the GMA T.50 was revealed.

The design principles inherited from the F1: central driving position, low weight, and a thrilling powertrain. Additionally, the car boasts compact dimensions (comparable to the Porsche Boxster), a manual gearbox, and, most notably, a fan. But let’s break it down.

In 2019, Murray called the only engine manufacturer, in his opinion, capable of meeting the challenge – Cosworth. He specified: no turbocharging, the lightest V12 in the world (at the time), the fastest-revving engine with the highest rev limit of any road car. Bruce Wood, Cosworth’s managing director, was shocked but didn’t refuse, Murray stayed cool, and the two signed the deal.
The 65-degree, V12 engine is a configuration Murray says is the most balanced. Indeed, the Cosworth-built crankshaft is extremely light (13 kg) and is housed in a dry sump. The block and heads are aluminium, the connecting rods and valves are titanium, the pistons are made from MMC (Metal Matrix Composite), and the covers bearing the GMA and Cosworth logos are magnesium.
The engine uses gears instead of a belt or chain for the camshaft, due to its 9,500+ rpm rev range. The entire system looks like the inside of a Swiss watch, enhancing rev responsiveness. The rev limiter is set at 12,100 rpm, and within a second, the engine could theoretically rev beyond 50,000 rpm! Although it’s not the most powerful V12 in automotive history (670 hp), it is definitely the lightest, weighing just 178 kg (dry), which is about 50 kg lighter than its rivals’ engines.

The six-speed manual gearbox was provided by British company Xtrac, and engineers tested several gear knobs of varying weights to ensure the most satisfying shift feel during driving.

Driving pleasure, or even delight, is GMA’s philosophy. The creator of the T.50 wouldn’t even know, as he says it doesn't matter, what the car’s top speed is, if it wasn’t for the ESP calibration. On the other hand, he places immense importance on aerodynamics. As you can see, the car isn’t covered with spoilers from every possible angle, and the design is simplistic. The magic happens underneath. Viewers’ attention is drawn only to the fan mounted where a rear wing would typically be found on other cars.

In this case, it doesn’t function like the famous Brabham BT46B or the fastest car at the Goodwood Festival of Speed—McMurtry Spéirling. It doesn’t suck the car down onto the road. Its purpose is to regulate the vortex pressure and smooth the airflow in the diffuser. The diffuser’s goal is to increase the speed of the air flowing under the car – faster airflow = lower pressure = more downforce. The vortex that creates drag appears when the diffuser changes direction too quickly. At the front of the T.50’s diffuser is an opening that expels this dirty air through a vent, where a vacuum is generated by the fan. The entire aerodynamic concept is thus hybrid, combining ground effect and the fan. It’s the essence of the rivalry between Brabham and Lotus from 1978. Brilliant!

There’s plenty of material about this car; I recommend the video from Hagerty’s channel, where Henry Catchpole drives both the F1 and T.50 on Spanish roads. It’s a film best watched with the volume turned up to the max.

The Unfair Advantage

Gordon Murray Automotive doesn’t aim to be a mass producer – each car will be limited to a maximum of 100 units. That’s the fate of the T.50. Its track version, the T.50s Lauda (in honour of Niki Lauda, who won the only race the Brabham BT46B “fan car” competed in), will be even more limited—just 25 units. This design wasn’t a modification of the T.50, but a parallel project that’s even more extreme. At the rear, there’s an enormous delta-shaped wing reminiscent of the front wing of the Brabham BT52, and the small racing mirrors (the T.50 has cameras), lacking a considerable portion of the interior and chunk of the steering wheel. As a result, the dry weight drops to 852 kg! In this case, power is transmitted by an automatic gearbox – again supplied by Xtrac.

I hope to one day see this model competing at Le Mans, though for now, there doesn’t seem to be a suitable class for it in endurance racing. For now, we can admire footage of its debut at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed.

The Younger Brother

The next road-going car to bear the siren emblem will be the T.33. The cabin design will be more conventional – two seats and the steering wheel on one side. Under the bonnet will be a softened version of the V12, with the rev limit lowered to 11,100 rpm. The styling pays homage to the sports cars of the 1960s, with subtle contours, elegant curves, and a beautiful engine cover window. It looks elegant and timeless. What excites me is the Spyder version with a carbon folding roof. What saddens me is the price – £1.37 million (T.50 is £2.36 million) and the limited production to the extent that if I ever see one in person, I’ll consider myself lucky.

Post Scriptum

Gordon Murray is also famous for a few other things: he collects T-shirts with musical prints and old-fashioned jukeboxes. But all of these pales in comparison to his collection of lightweight sports cars, more than half of which weigh under 900 kg.

A true genius.

Thank you for your continued interest, and I invite you to subscribe to the newsletter. I also encourage you to support the site on Buy Me a Coffee or Patreon. The funds collected will be used to develop the Heel and Toe magazine and ultimately allow full focus on the project. In the aforementioned service, sales of photos of the tested cars, including from this article, have started. These are collector's prints in numbered series on archival papers.

Have a good one!