Designer Gordon Murray pictured with the ‘spiritual successor’ to the McLaren F1, the T.50
Gordon Murray Automotive has unveiled its T.50 supercar for the first time, which will be manufactured at a new purpose-built facility in Surrey.
The car is described by the company as the ‘spiritual successor’ to the McLaren F1, which was originally conceived and designed by Gordon Murray.
From January 2022, 100 exclusive customer cars will be built at Gordon Murray Automotive’s production site.
From the record-breaking V12 engine, and best lightweight transmission, to the world-first aerodynamic package and the feather-light titanium throttle pedal, every element is 100% bespoke and crafted by a British company that leads in its field. Murray pushed each supplier to their limits to deliver ingenuity, the highest quality and of course new levels of lightness.
The chassis and frame of the T.50 are built entirely of high quality carbon fiber. Creating inherent stiffness and torsional stiffness, carbon fiber plays a role in making the T.50 the lightest supercar in the world.
Murray: “With the design of our T.50 superhighway, we are adopting the same specific technique that has been implemented for the design of the McLaren F1. Thanks to fashionable fabrics and 30 years of development, we have been offering much larger multipurpose car on the T.50, while solving its weight at only 986 kg, 150 kg less than the F1.
In the center of the T.50 is a light carbon fibre monohest. It was built through the British corporate Formaplex and features a new partially bonded complex carbon fiber and an aluminum honeycomb core. This structure approach provides the T.50 with exceptional structural rigidity, which improves handling, agility and riding comfort.
The intrinsic strength of the car’s carbon fiber ensures exceptional protection for occupants in the event of a collision. The car’s carbon fiber panels feature exactly deformed spaces and the car also uses an F1-style “passenger protection cell”. Stiffness and torsional resistance, the need for additional reinforcement or reinforcement, some other weight gain domain.
The outer frame panels are also constructed of complex carbon fiber: the front hull, sculpted doors and rear panels of the car. Surprisingly, the T.50 frame, carbon monocoque and all the frame panels tilted the balance to less than 150 kg.
The 3.9-litre T.50 engine delivers maximum power (663PS) at 11,500rpm, on its way to a 12,100rpm redline. The maximum torque figure of 467Nm is produced at 9,000rpm. The T.50 also claims to have the highest power density of any road-going V12.
It’s incredibly smooth thanks to an exceptional design mix and soft weight fabrics (aluminum, metal and titanium) for a total engine weight of only 178 kg.
The Cosworth GMA V12 engine and Xtrac manual gearbox are also semi-structural, fixed to the chassis.
Being fully adapted, it was imaginable to optimize each component of the gearbox for weight. The Xtrac team created an ultra-strong but incredibly lightweight aluminum case that sank to just 2.4 mm thick, resulting in a gearbox that not only met the strict packaging needs in the car, but also sucked on only 80.5 kg.
Throughout the initial progression process, weekly “weight observer” meetings at Gordon Murray Automotive tested the weight of the component. Even the diameter and duration of approximately. 900 fasteners have been optimized to reduce weight, taking into account the forces they would be exposed to.
For Gordon Murray Automotive’s team, no weight savings are too negligible. Every innovation, every iterative improvement supports the lightweight strategy that creates the purest, lightest and most driver-centric supercar.
This central project favored the simplicity of the structure and no compromise was tolerated, no cost was repaired. The car’s low total weight means that the T.50 can use a progressive dual triangulation suspension made of forged aluminum alloy at the front and rear, without further interference required through heavy electrical or hydraulic suspension components.
The wheels, hubs and suspension arms are ultra soft. The wheels are forged in a soft mixture of aluminum alloy (before 7.8 kg, rear 9.1 kg), as are the bolts and suspension triangles. While, for maximum weight gain, the car’s bushings and bearing brackets mimic those of an F1 car, with a single lock nut, greatly reducing the number of curtains needed to build them.
Each visitor will have a tradition in seat adjustment, specification process, height adjustment and guide wheel diversity at the same time, and exact adjustment of pedal settings.
Like the rest of the car, the pedal is machined in forged aluminum for greater strength and lightness and laser engraving with the so-called T.50, whether the clutch and brake pedals have a belt-shaped trend to save weight and provide a non-slip surface. The throttle pedal is made of forged titanium.
Throughout the structure of your car at Gordon Murray Automotive’s BRITISH production base, consumers will be informed of the condition of their car and will have the opportunity to make a stop at the structure of their car.