Whether it’s Formula 1 cars or road cars named F1, Gordon Murray knows how to build them properly. Case in point: The McLaren F1 has retained its title as the supercar for the past two-plus decades since its paradigm-shifting debut in the 1990s. With his new company, Gordon Murray Automotive, Murray is working on a worthy follow-up act that will be lighter and more powerful than the McLaren—and the new car will also have a third seat in the middle of the carbon fiber monocoque cockpit.
As announced earlier this summer, this project is currently being referred to as the T.50 (the Type 50, the fiftieth of Murray’s designs), and it will reportedly weigh in at a feathery 2,160lbs, house a naturally-aspirated 650-horsepower mid-mounted 3.9L V12 developed in conjunction with Cosworth, and come with a six-speed manual transmission. The motor revs to 12,100rpm and has no flywheel. There is a massive diffuser that’s aided by a fan to suck the car to the ground, a la Murray’s infamous Brabham BT46B. There will be nothing else like it on the market. Murray says the T.50 is not about chasing outright speed or other stats—as you can guess based on the fact that it has three pedals—but instead follow in the F1’s footsteps and offer an unparalleled supercar driving experience. That said, he’s confident that it will surpass the F1 in every objective and subjective measure.
Only 100 examples will be built for production, and our friends at the Canepa Group have been selected as the exclusive North American Representative for the T.50 project, meaning Canepa will handle the customer service, maintenance, warranty, and importation of the upcoming supercar, which should start being delivered to customers in 2022.
