The Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 is a very light car. At just 986 kg (2,173 lbs), it weighs less than a Mazda Miata despite making 654 HP. And yet, it’s one of the heaviest cars in Gordon Murray’s collection.
Always obsessed with lightweight cars, the designer took an hour to show Top Gear around (most of) his collection of classic cars. Now stored in the garage where the T.50 will actually be built, the collection is a tour through Murray’s racing history and the classics that defined his interests and style.
The heaviest car in the collection by an enormous margin is the Mercedes SLR McLaren that was made during Murray’s tenure as head of McLaren Cars. Despite its heavy use of carbon composites, the car still has a curb weight of 1,750 kg (3,858 lbs), which makes it an aberration in this particular garage.
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On the other hand, there’s the triangular Formula 750 race car that he implemented his trademark creative interpretation of the rules on. One of the first car he built after moving to England from South Africa in 1970, its ethos is still present in Murray’s designs today. Thanks to that interpretive creativity, it weighs just 280 kg (617 lbs). That means that the whole car, which Murray apparently still drives around in occasionally, weighs just 48 kg more than the engine in the SLR.
Although not every car in the collection weighs less than 1,000 lbs, every car (aside from the SLR) does weigh less than 1,000 kg (2,204 lbs) and three-quarters of them are under 800 kg (1,763 lbs).
Frankly, it’s a little uplifting that someone who is too tall to drive many of the race cars he lusts after is making a car that espouses their design principles, but makes them big enough for him to enjoy.