Age is just a number. On the other hand, numbers define a supercar. We have heard both the sayings independently.

But, earlier this week they came together in Gordon Murray’s new T.50, a hypercar created by a 74-year old designer that brings together multiple technologies to support the claim that it will be the baap of all supercars.

South Africa-born car designer Gordon Murray had been at the forefront of designing Formula One cars for nearly two decades.

He was also the brain behind the McLaren F1 supercar. Murray’s design for the T.50 (sort of like the successor to the McLaren F1) was the 50th in a prestigious line of race and road cars he’s penned over his illustrious 50-year career — both reasons combining to name the car T.50.

Sporting a carbon-fibre monocoque, a compact V12 engine with titanium components and numerous machined aluminium parts (going down to the speedo needle), the T.50 is said to have been engineered to be the purest, lightest, most driver-centric supercar ever. Improving on his acclaimed McLaren F1, Gordon Murray’s independent automobile company will begin building customer versions of the 986-kg supercar in January 2022. The T.50 will cost a cool £2.36 million before local taxes (about ₹24 crore) and the landed price tag in India could well be twice that much! Only 100 of them will be built. But Murray promises that the T.50 will deliver an unsurpassed driving experience.

It is powered by a 100 per cent bespoke 3.9-litre, naturally-aspirated V12 engine that revs to a record-breaking 12,100rpm and delivers a peak output of 663PS.

It is a 3-seater with the driver, the steering and controls placed at the centre! The T.50 features the most advanced and effective aerodynamics ever seen on a road car – aided by a 400mm rear-mounted fan, a controversial feature that Murray first created for the 1978 Formula One car from Brabham-Alfa Romeo.

GMA claims that in partnership with the active rear spoilers and interactive diffusers, the propeller-like fan helps to increase downforce by 50 per cent (in Braking Mode 100 per cent more downforce is generated); at the same time it reduces drag by 12.5 per cent; adds around 50PS to the car’s output, in combination with ram-air induction; and cuts braking distance by 10m from 150mph. The T.50’s kerb weight of 986kg makes it the lightest supercar of the modern era, lower than the average supercar weight by almost a third, claims Murray. The weight-to-power ratio, as GMA puts it, is the best for any supercar, thanks to the extensive light-weighting. The engine developed with Cosworth has many firsts too, including being the lightest road-going V12 ever. To make the build and the experience for the driver even more analog, the T.50 features a 6-speed manual transmission with the classic H-pattern gear change.

Purity and balance

The T.50’s exterior design highlight is its purity and balance, free from the wings, skirts and vents that other modern-day supercars need. Elaborating on the design, Murray says that the clean surfaces and purity of the silhouette is broken dramatically when the pair of dihedral doors rise up and forward, coming to rest high above the passenger cabin. The panels over the engine can be opened upwards similarly to put the V12 on full display.

In the cabin, the ‘jet-fighter’ style seating position affords an unhindered view out of the cabin and the aerospace-grade primary and secondary controls are arranged in an ‘ergonomic bubble’ around the driver, offering the type of pure driving experience usually associated with a single-seater race car layout.

The car also features a Direct Path Induction Sound – a system pioneered on the McLaren F1 and refined on the T.50 to channel the sound of the throttle-induced growl into the cabin.

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