Gordon Murray, famous for knocking the Formula One racing world on its collective ear on more than one occasion (with such notable designs as the Brabham F1 fan car and McLaren’s almost all conquering MP4/4) has been turning his fertile imagination towards personal transportation of a greener, if no less fun, stripe. After peaking interest with his highly secretive compact T25 City Car earlier this year, Murray is supposedly planning to use the same manufacturing and construction methods for an as-yet unnamed supercar that will also feature a heavy green slant.
According to Autocar UK Murray wants to build a T25 inspired supercar that will be compact, lightweight and powered by a high-output, small-capacity engine, combining strong performance with low CO2 emissions. The “compact and lightweight” part is easy to understand, since those were two of the basic parts of a performance car design since day one. But what is particularly noticeable is the “powered by a high-output, small-capacity engine, combining strong performance with low CO2 emissions” part. This represents the way forward for performance cars of a greener future.

The standard practice for performance cars is to make the car as small as practical and stuff the biggest engine you can find into the engine bay. Most top of the line offerings from companies such as Ferrari and Aston Martin and Bugatti feature engines in the 6-liter range. There’s no hard data from Murray yet on engine size for the T25, but keep this in mind: in the mid-80s, Honda was making 1.5 liter racing engines that cranked out well in excess of 1000 horse power (coincidentally enough, these Honda engines sat in Gordon Murray designed McLaren chassis); big power from small engines is imminently feasible.
Lowering CO2 emissions is the next big hurdle facing European car manufacturers, with more stringent standards that will phase in over the next decade. For Murray to get a jump on this aspect of performance car design is a very positive sign.
Although still in the very early stages of design and development, Gordon Murray Design is supposedly considering putting the supercar into production themselves. And Gordon tells Autocar UK: “We wouldn’t necessarily sell on the supercar for someone else to make.”
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