GORDON MURRAY ON THE ‘MCMERC’

“We had a meeting with the board members, directors and senior people, and I said, ‘What is [the Vision SLR, below] supposed to be in competition with?’ They replied, ‘Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lamborghini – all the top-end people.’

“And I said, ‘But it’s not a front-mid-engined car; it’s a front-engined car. It’s got no boot space, the fuel tank is high up above the back axle, it’s got these huge pneumatic suspension struts on each corner that weigh 9.5kg each, and I can see from here that the weight distribution is completely wrong. Forget it.’

“What I really wanted to say was, ‘I don’t want us to have our name on this car. It’s never going to handle, it’s never going to perform, and it certainly won’t be in competition with those guys you’ve just mentioned.’ There was a lot of biting of tongues and gnashing of teeth, but they did come around and say, ‘OK, will you tell us what it has to be?’

“I went home and we did a little leaflet. It was a bit The cat sat on the mat! It said, ‘This is a sports car, this is a GT car and this is a saloon car. And a sports car must have this weight distribution.’ Stuff like that. I said, ‘We’d love the job, but you’ll have to let us change the architecture completely and start again.’

“There was all sorts of really inventive stuff on the SLR. Engineering-wise, it was incredibly strong and rigid, and to this day I’m very proud of that structure. It was the safest car that Mercedes had ever made by a mile, and the stiffest car it had ever made by a mile, and probably still is to this day.

“It’s a significant motor car in my design career because it was for a big corporation where they let us do everything. I’m very proud of the engineering in it, but it’s not one I find endearing as a motor car.”

There are more of Murray’s reflections in his autobiography One Formula (see Books).