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$3.1M Gordon Murray T.50 Is A 21st Century McLaren F1

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#1 ·
$3.1M Gordon Murray T.50 Is A 21st Century McLaren F1 That Weighs Less Than An MX-5
Carscoops
BY MICHAEL GAUTHIER | POSTED ONAUGUST 4, 2020

Gordon Murray is best-known for creating the McLaren F1 and now he’s following up with a spiritual successor of sorts known as the T.50.

Designed to be the purest, lightest and most driver-centric supercar ever created, the T.50 improves on the McLaren F1 “in every conceivable way.”

Of course, that’s a bit subjective as T.50 looks like the unholy love child of a McLaren and a Porsche 918 Spyder. That being said, the car does take the idea of the F1 into the modern era.
Starting up front, there’s a wedge-shaped nose which features a pair of F1-inspired LED headlights. The model also has a rakish windscreen, dihedral doors and engine covers that open upwards. The design of the doors is echoed on the glass roof, but the most notable characteristic is the roof-mounted scoop which feeds air to the naturally-aspirated V12 engine.

Elsewhere, we can see streamlined carbon fiber bodywork, a ventilated rear fascia and a large diffuser. The model also has 3D taillights and 19- / 20-inch forged alloy wheels wrapped in Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S tires.

The latter are backed up by a high-performance braking system that features six-piston calipers which grab onto 14.6 inch (370 mm) carbon ceramic discs. Out back, there are four-piston calipers and 13.4 inch (340 mm) discs.
As we have previously reported, the car is powered by a bespoke, 3.9-liter V12 engine that produces 654 hp (488 kW / 663 PS) and 344 lb-ft (467 Nm) of torque. It’s naturally-aspirated and built by Cosworth.

The engine has been designed to be the “world’s highest revving, fastest responding, most power dense and lightest road-going V12.” It revs to 12,100 rpm and can go from idle to redline in just 0.3 seconds.

The engine is connected to a six-speed manual transmission which has five close ratios geared for acceleration. There’s also a longer sixth ratio for cruising.

Like everything else on the T.50, the gearbox has been designed to be extremely lightweight. As a result, it has an aluminium casing that is just 0.1 inch (2.4 mm) thick. This helps to enable the transmission to weigh just 177 lbs (80.5 kg).

Unfortunately, the company didn’t reveal the car’s top speed or its 0-60 mph (0-96 km/h) time. However, Gordon Murray Automotive said they’re not “not chasing power or top speed figures.”






 
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#4 ·
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You mean the rear fan?
"What we do when the fan fires up, and we want more downforce at lower speeds, is we open the slots and spool the fan up to maximum, and we remove all the dirty air and the boundary layer, and that means that the air has to follow the surface. It's forced to follow the surface to fill the vacuum that was left there," Murray told Road & Track.

This sophisticated active aero system operated in multiple modes. The most hardcore setting is Vmax Mode that puts the ducts and fan in a low-drag arrangement and uses the 48-volt integrated starter-generator to boost the engine output to 700 horsepower (522 kilowatts). There's also a high-downforce configuration when the driver wants to stick to the road.
Similar solution was use long time ago on one F1 car...Brabham BT46B, IT was designed by Gordon Murray. It was banned after one race.
And in Chaparral J2
 
#9 ·
#16 ·
I have mixed feelings on this car, it pretty much looks like a modernized Mclaren F1 however making it a fan car while being unique for a road car and giving it an edge when it comes to down force doesn't give it the best look. Though those looking for novelty (and there are plenty) the fan is going to be what sells them on the car. Though combine that with having 650BHP and a stated kerb weight of 2,173 pounds (I believe in Europe kerb weight is 90% fuel) is going to make this an insanely fast car around a track. Nothing is going to be able to compete with it around a race track and a nice return to how performance cars should be, though sadly this is going to be a one off kind of thing.
 
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