Gavin Green: petrol isn’t an end in itself

We’re lucky to have lived when we have, says Gordon Murray, creator of the Senna and Prost GP McLarens, the McLaren F1 road car and now the new T.50, last of the analogue supercars. The subject turns to engines. He may be better known for his lightweight sports cars, but Gordon Murray started his career designing engines. The new T.50 has a Cosworth engine and it’s very much to Gordon’s spec. It will be the lightest and highest revving (to 12,100rpm) V12 ever and doubtless the last all-new V12.

By 2030, no new V12s can be sold in the UK, and no other petrol cars either, unless they’re part-electric PHEVs, available until 2035.

Gordon, like me, loves engines that have pistons and valves and camshafts and a crank and conrods and an exhaust, and which make wonderful noises – growling, trumpeting, bellowing – and which have entertained us for more than 100 years. We’ll miss them, we agree. Or, rather, we’ll miss the good ones. But tomorrow’s top sporting cars will still be amazing. Drive the new electric Porsche Taycan Turbo S and feel the speed (and the future). It’s quicker around a track than many modern supercars.

Electric cars may be mechanically very different. Yet, in character and enjoyment, they’re really an evolution of a 100-year trend: part of a joinedup journey, not a nasty electric jolt. To illustrate this, let us first travel back to the late 1920s, and sample Bentley’s pre-war Blower. It isn’t easy. It’s hugely physical, requiring shoulder and arm heft to turn the big steering wheel, leg strength to work the clutch and brakes. To change gear, you must be precise, firm and get the revs just-so. Double declutching is essential.

The 4.4-litre four-cylinder engine is slow-revving and torquey, like a big diesel. You sit high and exposed. It feels fast but isn’t, at least by modern standards. Modern supercars, conversely, are fast but usually don’t feel it.

Fast forward to 1961. The E-Type Jaguar feels like a fast car, not a fast truck, snug and low. The gearchange is notchy and slow but far slicker than the Blower’s, and the steering is less weighty. You steer more with wrists and forearms, not biceps and shoulders. It’s a less dramatic driving experience. The journey to refinement and effortless speed has begun.

Let us move on to 1985, and we’re driving a Ferrari 288 GTO. It’s turbocharged and there’s strong, smooth torque from quite low revs, not dissimilar to an electric motor’s, although the lag would be unfamiliar to Tesla drivers. It’s far more refined than the E-Type.

A few years later, Ferrari introduces the paddleshift semi-auto to F1. The stick-and-clutch manual is on its way out, on both track and road.

Now we’re up to date and driving the latest Porsche 911. In its default Normal mode, it’s an automatic. There are only two pedals: stop and go, just like an EV. Naturally, it has effortless power steering. There is a touchscreen, apps and wi-fi. This part-digital Porsche is much quieter than old 911s, less fidgety, much less demanding and involving to drive.

Only when you choose Sport or Sport Plus does it feel like a proper 911. The gears drop and the revs jump, and the eager flat-six, just behind your spine, roars approval. At speed, it feels wonderfully mechanical. Yet the engine is sensationally smooth and strong from low revs. Turbo engines now deliver meaty torque from barely more than idle, similar to a fast EV.

Now, finally, we’re in a Taycan Turbo S, and it accelerates faster than any 911 without any gearshifting, and it punches heavyweight-hard from zero revs. It’s less engaging and playful than a 911 on a winding road at speed but, otherwise, not so very different to drive. In fact, most of the time, the latest 911 feels more like a Taycan than an old 911.

This new electric Porsche is wonderfully composed and eerily refined. It’s a brilliantly engineered sports saloon. Although, dammit, I will miss the noise and drama and artistry and engineering majesty of a great petrol engine. Gordon Murray will too.