Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren 722 Edition

Gordon Murray Automotive T.50s Niki Lauda

top: gordon murray, damon hill, colin mcrae, john cleland middle: guy smith, emerson fittipaldi, jonny kane, pat symonds bottom: leo mehl, lewis hamilton, alister mcrae autosport awards - december 3, 1995 📷 sutton images / motorsport images

TVR Cerbera Speed 12 

This is a terrifying machine.  And it’s a car so terrifying that, after a test drive of one of the prototypes, the boss of TVR decided against putting it into production. And when that boss was Peter Wheeler, who thought airbags were more trouble than they were worth and that ABS was just a crutch for poorly set up cars, you likely have some idea of what it takes to terrify him. In fact, we’d argue that Wheeler’s the man who made TVR a byword for terrifying. After he took the reins of TVR, he ditched the Cologne V6s in favour of Rover V8s. Which he then pushed out, bored out and maxed out. But after nearly tripling the Rover V8’s power, Wheeler ditched it entirely in favour of a V8 and straight-six of TVR’s own design. TVR’s tilt at top-tier racing, however, would require even more madness. But then it would, considering it was shaping up to be Blackpool’s merchants of oversteer up against the industrial might of Mercedes, the racing pedigree of Porsche and the bona fide genius of Gordon Murray. Yep, TVR’s planned racer would be up against the Mercedes CLK GTR, Porsche GT1 and McLaren F1 Longtail. Surmounting such a daunting challenge was approached in... let’s say typical TVR fashion. The 7.7-litre V12 (which was, at its most basic, two of TVR’s AJP-6 straight sixes combined) apparently snapped the input shaft of TVR’s 1,000bhp-rated dyno. A top speed in excess of the McLaren F1 was mooted. And, yes, Peter Wheeler, who raced 500bhp-per-tonne TVRs in the one-make Tuscan Challenge, was so spooked by the end result that he deemed the road-going Speed 12 entirely too bonkers and pulled the pin on the road-going car. Yes, too bonkers for TVR. Imagine how mad. See, TVR did end up building just one Speed 12 road car – an amalgam of road car, prototype chassis, and racing parts – and sold it to a buyer personally vetted by Wheeler himself. And it was every bit the madman that everyone expected it to be. The sheer weight of what was onboard the Speed 12– namely, that 7.7-litre V12, with around 850bhp and 900lb ft – was belied only by the eventual kerb weight: around 1,000kg. 

Screenshot from the “Any Road” music video.

Q: “You are a keen driver and own two cars close to being racing models, don’t you? They must give you a lot of pleasure.” George Harrison: “My McLaren F1 road car always gives me an awesome feeling when I am in it. Next favorite is my Rocket (for hooligans only). Respects to Gordon Murray (designer of both the McLaren F1 and the Rocket, and the BT46B, and now head of car design at McLaren International). Bit of a contrast to my first cars, a Ford Anglia and a Jaguar MkII.” - The Times F1 Handbook, March 2001 “[George] had such fun building the McLaren. When we did the McLaren F1, we decided, I decided that it would be the most personalized motorcar ever made. And if you wanted to customize the car, way beyond paint colors and stuff, if you wanted special bits and pieces, we encouraged people to come down [to the factory]. And George got that concept, and he got it big time. And he used to [laughs] — he almost lived there. We actually joked about getting him a bedroom in the factory, because he used to be down there every week. And I think, I think the car ended up with Ganesh — you know, the Indian little elephant thing — I think the car ended up with fourteen elephants in it. […] He really went for it on the customization. So that makes it a very special motorcar. And it was great fun doing it. In fact, the guys building the car so loved him coming round that they made him a special book with all the photographs of it, his car being built, and signed it, and they gave it to him at the end.” - Gordon Murray, Living In The Material World bonus features You can find detailed photos of McLaren in the book Living In The Material World (2011). (x)

hey remember that time I shared a really big google drive with the entire trumptonshire soundtrack on it?

well now it's on archive.org baby

https://archive.org/details/trumptonshire-complete-soundtrack

I felt like this was a better way for it to be more accessible to people than just a drive link

I've also uploaded my scans of the two sheet music books so that you can both listen to and play those silly tunes

https://archive.org/details/trumptonshire-sheet-music-collection

have fun yall!!

#MiniatureMonday

The Making of Man by  Algernon Swinburne, Designed and published by Gordon Murray.

The continuation of our little spring series, this embordered cover really caught our eye! Algernon Swinburne was an English poet and novelist, and also contributed to the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

The artist, Gordon Murray, was an English animator and puppeteer who produced children's shows for the BBC and independently. He also created "thirty-four different limited-edition miniature books under the Silver Thimble Books imprint." UIowa holds a collection of his works. See the catalog here!

"Bound in light blue cloth with a needlework inset on cover. Issued in a slipcase with printed label. Each page has a hand painted illustration or marbled paper with printed text mounted on top of pages. Gordon Murray V 1986. "Printed on double leaves; text sheets are mounted with hand colored initials." --Catalog

--Diane R., Special Collections Graduate Student

Anyone taking up a new hobby over the summer? Needlepoint and cross-stitch seems to be gaining popularity recently, with some neat pop culture designs!

Niki, Gordon Murray, and Ermanno Cuoghi, probably whispering secrets about the fan car

Brabham BT49C: La suspensión hidroneumática y la controversia de 1981

Con este auto al límite del reglamento, Nelson Piquet le ganó el título a Carlos Reutemann por un punto.

El mundo de la Fórmula 1 está convulsionado tras la solicitud de Cora Reutemann, hija del legendario piloto argentino Carlos Reutemann, para que la Federación Internacional del Automóvil (FIA) reconsidere el título de la temporada 1981 que quedó en manos del brasileño Nelson Piquet, del equipo Brabham. La petición se basa en una polémica bien conocida en el paddock: la suspensión hidroneumática…

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GMA T.50

You Can Own The £2+ Million Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 In 1/8 Scale For ‘Only’ US$18K

😲😲😲

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8/17

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Gordan Murray Automotive T.33 Spider

The coupe and spider were side by side all the way back to Gordon Murray’s first profile sketches, with the boss wanting “to make sure that the proportions would work”.

It should come as no surprise then that the Spider very much resembles the coupe, with the prominent fixed loop proving essential in terms of style, aerodynamics and indeed safety. While incorporating the rollover structure, the singular structure is also better for airflow as opposed to two loops and obviously, is a surface atop which the engine-mounted inlet scoop can float. What doesn't carry over is the glass canopy over the inlet scoop, with a drop after the loop which now creates buttresses, fairing in a vented panel. Coming off the scoop is a small fin, in which the third brake light and rear-view camera sit. Floating between the roll structure and the windscreen will be two removable roof panels which can be stored in the front trunk. In other words, the T.33’s roof and roof storage effectively mimic that of the Porsche Carrera GT.

Unlike the Carrera GT, having the roof off doesn’t mean you have no storage space in the T.33 Spider. Like the coupe, the Spider will feature unique space underneath its haunches, which hinge outwards to open to reveal 90 litres of space each.

Reflecting the more casual implication of top-down motoring, the four ‘Design Range spec themes brought by GMA for the T.33 Spider are a bit of fun. These will be influenced respectively by GMA core values of Return to Beauty and Engineering art. Differentiating the Spider from the coupe, apart from the obvious removable roof, are the new classy multi-spoke wheels. Might we say they go delightfully with the Azuro California-esque paint on this prototype.

The car’s aerodynamics – specifically its downforce generation – are mostly handled underneath the car, with Murray fully leveraging his ground effect chops. That means the T.33’s Passive Boundary Layer Control (PBLC) system carries over, with variable active ducts underneath the car that control how the air attaches to the car’s floor, working in tandem with a simple active spoiler atop its rump.

Areas where convertibles are often stunted over their hardtop counterparts are in weight and stiffness. In-tandem development of the coupe and Spider means the stiffness targets of both have been in the works from very early on. As for weight? The Spider is targeted to be just 18kg heavier than the coupe. Those targets are the same for ride, stiffness, steering and transient handling too, with the suspension effectively carryover bar minor calibration changes.

The most important bit that carries over? The 617PS (453kW) 4.0-litre GMA V12, developed by Cosworth and good for a 11,100rpm redline. Yes, it’s fed by that central air box that’s bolted directly to it, that’s now there to be heard just a few inches above and to the rear of the occupant’s heads. Imagine how visceral the induction roar could be. Unlike the T.33 coupe, the Spider will only be available with the manual transmission, as opposed to having the option of a six-speed paddle-shift gearbox, although there's a rub with that too, given the paddle-shift has been dropped for the Coupe as well, due to low demand.