If the Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 has a problem it's human skepticism - with many people still not believing it's going to be possible to build something so otherworldly. That's despite the fact work on the T.50 is well advanced, even as much of the rest of the supercar segment seems to be in danger of collapse, and has only suffered from relatively minor inconvenience from the COVID-19 lockdown.
More to the point, Gordon Murray himself says that around three quarters of the limited-to-100 run of road cars have now been sold, that's despite a £2m price tag and the need for buyers to front a £600,000 deposit when they sign on the line. The combination of an ultra-light carbon body, a central driving position, naturally aspirated V12 engine and a six-speed manual gearbox might be gloriously unlikely - but it is happening - as is the use of active 'ground effects' aerodynamics from a 48-Volt fan.
The disbelief should have ended last Friday with the official unveiling of the car, but unfortunately that's one of the things the Corono-crisis has pushed back. "The company that was building our model for the launch got some cases of COVID and shut down, so we lost around six weeks," Murray explains. The new plan is for an unveiling in August, which will almost certainly be done online rather than physically.
But we do have some more details, including confirmation that the car will come in on Murray's target of a 980kg kerbweight. That won't just make it the lightest supercar ever, but also one of the lightest roof-wearing cars on the road - 100kg less than an Exige and 260kg under a Mazda MX-5 RC. While Murray has plenty to be proud about with the new car, he says hitting the target has given him the greatest pleasure - especially as he missed the same one with the original McLaren F1 whose spirit the T.50 is explicitly channeling.
"Initially we were looking at a smaller motor [for the F1] and we were going to use carbon brakes," Murray remembers, "but it ended up with a 6.1-litre engine and no carbon brakes, and everything gets bigger as the torque gets higher... I was determined to do better this time."
Weight has been saved both in terms of major components, but also an obsessive attention to detail with smaller ones. The T.50 development team has held regular "mass track" sessions where they plot the weight of every component being added to the car, from individual fasteners upwards, to make sure that everything is as light as can be. The carbon monocoque and all exterior body panels weigh less than 150kg, the windscreen uses extra-thin glass and even the pedal box is lighter than the one on the F1; something Murray initially thought would be impossible.
"I said to the guys 'I designed the pedals on the F1, I did the stress analysis, you're not going to get any weight out of that.' But we had a look at the whole thing again, materials and technology, and we've saved 300g on the pedal box, and 800g on the gear change mechanism by using a lot more titanium."
Bigger reductions have come from both engine and transmission, with Murray admitting that both Cosworth and X-trac "laughed a bit nervously" when he gave them his targets. Yet both have delivered. The Cosworth-made 4.0-litre V12 is set to weigh less than 180kg, a 60kg saving over the F1's BMW unit. It's also going to make more power - 650hp - and rev to a motorbike-like 12,100rpm; although famed for the speed of its responses the F1's rev-limiter was set at 7500rpm. The gearbox is similarly special. "The [Pete] Weismann [designed] 'box on the F1 was very light, the lightest transverse gearbox in a road car ever at that point, and we've managed to beat that by 9.5kg," Murray says, "again, with new materials and new technology - X-trac has taken a millimeter out of the casing with a new casting technique."
"It's what I call engineering art," Murray says, "every single little piece - whether it's the mount that holds the windscreen wiper to the monocoque or something you'll touch every time you drive it - is a beautifully designed piece of art. That's what really sets you apart; it set the F1 apart from the other supercars of the time and we're doing it again with the T.50."
Beyond delaying the full-size model, COVID has also caused some problems for the aerodynamic modeling of the car. Murray says that the deal to use the Racing Point Formula 1 team's wind tunnel is still in place - despite owner Lawrence Stroll's recent acquisition of a sizeable chunk of Aston Martin - but lockdown means it hasn't been possible to do it. That has required much more CFD - computational fluid dynamics - modeling, a process it turns out is actually slower than real-life modeling. "In a wind tunnel you can do up to 60 runs a day," says Murray - but with computer modeling, nothing close. "We're two or three weeks behind," he adds, "but that's easily recoverable."
Even without a formal launch, the car has continued to sell - to the point that anyone wanting to add a T.50 to their collection would be well advised not to wait too long to make contact. "When we first announced it I said we'll probably pre-sell 12 or 15 cars before the laMurray says, "but we've had a steady trickle of sales every week since we announced the car." Indeed, the rate of sales has actually increased slightly since the COVID-crisis, helped by Zoom video conferencing sessions where potential customers get a digital look at what the finished car will look like.
While some are existing McLaren F1 owners, Murray says he is surprised at the relative youth of many of the buyers - 40 percent being under 45. "They consistently tell me the same thing," he says, "they were teenagers with the F1 on a poster on their bedroom wall, but by the time they had a successful business the F1 was £15m and they couldn't find one anyway. This is their F1 and they're getting it at an 85 percent discount - that's one way of looking at it."
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