GREATEST SUPERCAR
This is it, the inner circle Murray’s T.50 plans to infiltrate. The five greatest supercars ever according to TG, and why...
A simple discussion that ended in virtual pugilism – and here is the definitive top five list of the best supercars ever
Every great story has a strong beginning, and the McLaren F1 is no different. On 8 March 1990, Gordon Murray addressed the newly recruited McLaren Cars team in the company’s Genesis HQ. The meeting lasted 10 hours. “I went into the detailed targets: maximum weight 1,000kg, maximum width 1.8m, front and rear overhangs the absolute minimum because I wanted to concentrate the mass within the wheelbase to minimise the polar moment of inertia. Aerodynamically we had to maintain the centre of pressure position, something production car manufacturers never addressed and which accounts for high-speed instability. I just listed everything that was inherently bad on mid-engined sports cars and said we intended to avoid it.
“The engine question remained open but I thought a 5.0 V12 would do the job and then I eventually opened the meeting to questions...”
Murray disdains zero to 60 times, top speed, and Nürburgring lap times. The F1’s achievements, particularly as the competition car it was never meant to be (Le Mans 24-Hour Race winner in 1995 and more), distract from the purity of its original philosophy. Which was to create the lightest and most focused driver’s car ever made,
but also a GT civilised enough to carry three occupants to the south of France in comfort.
The F1’s achievements would flow from the inherent rightness of its design. It was the world’s first carbon composite production car, its monocoque consisting of 48 mouldings. There’d be no traction control, ABS or power steering. The driver would sit centrally, with the passengers set slightly back on either side. McLaren boss Ron Dennis lobbied for a single seater, but that would have run counter to the usable GT remit.
Then there was its engine. That question remained open longer than Murray would have liked. He’d determined that only Honda, BMW or Ferrari could meet his requirement for a large capacity, normally aspirated power unit that could deliver 100bhp per litre. Given McLaren’s close F1 partnership, and the fact that Murray’s road car at the time was an NSX, Honda was the obvious choice. Yet nothing materialised. “They never really said no. It just sort of drifted into oblivion,” he recalls.
At the German Grand Prix in July 1990 he met old friend Paul Rosche, BMW Motorsport’s engine boss, who had supplied the unit in the 1983 F1 championship-winning Brabham BT52. Murray told him they were struggling to find an engine. BMW had a 5.0-litre V12 in development,
“THE INTERIOR REMAINS UNPARALLELED IN
but that was too heavy and not high enough revving. “I want big displacement in the smallest possible overall package-size – absolutely no more than 600mm long, revving to around seven-five, 550-plus bhp, maximum weight 250kg, rigid enough to work as a load bearing structural member, dry-sump lubrication to minimise overall height and avoid surge in high-G cornering,” Murray said.
“We’ll do a new engine,” Rosche replied.
Work began in March 1991, and by Christmas a prototype of the 6.1-litre, 60-degree V12 was on the dyno. It ended up weighing 266kg, a penalty Murray could live with in the circumstances. Despite its motorsport roots, the V12 had to be tractable and well-mannered for everyday use, and operate to a reasonable service interval. The head and block were cast in aluminium, the cylinder bores coated in Nicasil. BMW was also expert at fitting large-capacity cylinder bores within minimumsized block dimensions; on this unit, barely 3mm separated them from each other. The exhaust was made of Inconel, and the silencer was designed to double up as a rear impact absorber.
Murray was pushing the boundaries elsewhere. He demanded a minimal flywheel effect, and used an aluminium plate no bigger than absolutely necessary in order to achieve it. This reduced rotational inertia, imbuing the F1 with a throttle response closer to a superbike than a car.
“I said to Paul, a 60-degree V12 doesn’t need a flywheel, because every 120 degrees you have a cylinder firing and it’s in perfect primary balance. There’s no upsetting force at all. Why do you need a flywheel?
“One of his engine designers piped up and said, ‘You can’t build a road car without a flywheel.’ Paul turned on him and said, ‘Have you ever built a road car without a flywheel?’ He said, ‘No.’ And Paul said, ‘Well, don’t say no until you’ve tried. We’ll try it without a flywheel.’ And it hasn’t got a flywheel. The first thing anybody says when they jump in an F1 is, ‘Well, that’s just got to be the best V12.’ It wangs up and down, which is all part of the experience.”
Peter Stevens, who had just completed work on the Lotus Elan and knew Murray from Brabham, was initially contacted by Murray for advice, only to offer his services full time. “I didn’t want a stylist because I knew in my head what the size and proportions of the car were going to be. I’d done some sketches,” Murray says. “Peter said, ‘I want the job.’ And I said, ‘You’re a bit senior. I really just want to steer someone.’ He said, ‘No, I want the job.’ So I said, ‘Well, if you don’t mind the fact that you are part of the design team and I’m leading it, fine.’”
Nevertheless, Stevens helped propel the part of the F1 story that is often sidelined: the way it looks. It’s true that the car’s dimensions and aerodynamic requirements were predetermined. The body’s height was set at 1,140mm, and Murray refused to go any wider than 1.8m – although it would eventually grow by 20mm, and he had to accept it or redesign the suspension. The three-seat configuration in such a compact package was a challenge. As was the continued absence of an engine.
“The moment BMW gave us an engine length we knew the wheelbase. That’s when we went to the wind tunnel,” Stevens says. Even then, he still didn’t work up a design. Instead, he tried a variety of solutions in the tunnel, using four different 3/10th scale models, and ran more than 1,100 tests. At which point the car’s form language began to emerge. Gordon and Peter were fans of Sixties masterpieces like the Alfa Romeo 33
Stradale and Canguro, and Murray wanted to reference the 1971 Brabham BT34’s ‘lobster claw’ front end. “I’d wanted something Sixties, all soft curves, but it couldn’t look retro. We didn’t want a fashionable shape that’d date. The way I see it is that Peter’s skill was inventing the look of the F1 in spite of everything I imposed.”
The interior also remains unparalleled in terms of ergonomic first principles. Everything the driver sees or touches feels special in a way no mass produced car could possibly be. Murray thinks there’s too much play in some of the switchgear, and the T.50 will address the F1’s poor headlights and wheezy air con. But some things are unimprovable. “My idea was that when the car was parked and a little kid came along and peered in, it would look like a single seater and you couldn’t see the passenger seats. It works!” As does the noise. The Formula One-inspired roof inlet enabled the induction to be directly above the driver’s head. Engineering and music are two of Murray’s biggest passions, notably united here.
“I tuned the piece of carbon where the induction pulses are coming forwards and backwards up through that,” he says. “I tuned the thickness so it’s a loudspeaker. Everybody thinks the F1’s roar is exhaust. But it’s nothing to do with the exhaust. It’s this loudspeaker. Because that’s all a loudspeaker is: just a membrane moving the air. And it transfers the noise perfectly through this thin thing. I offered everybody a thin one and a thick one. Nobody bought the thick one. We never made one.”
Who would argue with Gordon Murray?