{"id":54611,"date":"2018-07-24T15:56:59","date_gmt":"2018-07-24T14:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/issue_content\/gordons-golden-touch\/"},"modified":"2019-07-19T14:41:39","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T13:41:39","slug":"gordon-s-golden-touch","status":"publish","type":"issue_content","link":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/archive\/article\/february-2018\/88\/gordon-s-golden-touch\/","title":{"rendered":"Gordon\u2019s golden touch"},"content":{"rendered":"

A retrospective show celebrating a lifetime of car design proves that even at 71, Gordon Murray remains as innovative as ever<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Gordon Murray decided that his 50 years in cars was worth remembering, it coincided with a new project and a new factory. Not content with creating Formula 1 race winners, the greatest supercar yet built, an eco city car and redesigning the entire process of car manufacture, Gordon has decided to start a new car marque.<\/p>\n

Partly to announce that and partly in celebration of those 50 years of achievement, Murray\u2019s team assembled an amazing once-in-a-lifetime show of 40 cars he has created, from his IGM Ford built at his South African home in 1967 to the latest TVR Griffith, in a brand-new building at Dunsfold aerodrome. While Gordon Murray Design remains at Shalford, Surrey, expanding his revolutionary iStream manufacturing process, Dunsfold will be home to Gordon Murray Automotive, developing and building small-run cars under the IGM label (it stands for Ian Gordon Murray). And while Gordon was reticent about detail as he announced it, the first car will be a compact, light supercar designed by Murray\u2019s never-varying philosophy of \u2018lightness first\u2019.<\/p>\n

You could see that principle in the man\u2019s own car collection \u2013 not supercars but flyweights: Fiat 500, Alfa Romeo SZ, Mini, Abarths, Elans \u2013 all weighing in at less than 1000kg. It\u2019s Murray\u2019s obsession.<\/p>\n

NEXT DOOR <\/b>we strolled around the \u2018One Formula\u2019 exhibition, Gordon chatting casually about his Grand Prix-winning cars, most of which were lined up here from BT42 through the red Alfa Romeo era and blue and white title-winning years into McLaren glory, including the BT46B fan car. \u201cChapman made up the stuff about stones being fired at following drivers,\u201d he said wryly, patting the dustbin-sized fan cowling. \u201cThe air exit speed was only about 50mph.\u201d<\/p>\n

That IGM logo appeared at the start of Murray\u2019s design life, on that T1 sports car, and while the car here is a recent replica, the original IGM-badged steering wheel was hanging on the wall. Alongside was a reconstruction of Gordon\u2019s first office featuring his drawing board, desk, instruments and Dansette record player. Music\u2019s another theme \u2013 the show was backed by hundreds of LP covers.<\/p>\n

Amazingly it\u2019s 25 years since the McLaren F1 redefined the word supercar, and a squad of them on show ran through \u2018base\u2019 model and LM winner to the long-tail GTR. But in between the physical vehicles were the \u2018ghost cars\u2019 \u2013 projects that never materialised, such as a McLaren 2+2 supercar, a side-by-side two-seater to partner his tandem Rocket, a Brabham-Offy Indy car.<\/p>\n

In this fascinating show, occupying the spaces that will see new IGMs created, one thing was noticeable: Murray is incapable of making an ugly car. Even the flat-pack Ox truck, assembled from simple panels, and the garden tractor he knocked up using Tyrrell six-wheeler tyres have attractive proportions. Speaking of gardens, also on show were some of the soapbox karts that every year fly down a rough track in Gordon\u2019s private \u2018grass prix\u2019 at his place in France. This is not a conventional corporate man.<\/p>\n

Convention is in fact so far from Murray\u2019s standpoint that he hopes to disrupt the whole car manufacturing industry, and his tiny city cars demonstrate that. Minimal is the game, although the last car in the show is the brawny TVR Griffith; but GMD managed to fillet even this roadburner so it\u2019s 300kg less lardy than its rivals. Weight, he says, is \u201cthe last frontier. Car companies will pay more than ever for every kilo saved. On the other hand, an iStream structure is not only innately lighter but completely future-proof. We don\u2019t care whether it\u2019s petrol, electric, hybrid or hydrogen, or if it\u2019s autonomous, it can adapt simply. Well,\u201d he adds after a pause, \u201cI personally care if it\u2019s autonomous\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

SITTING ON<\/b> a red and white vinyl sofa by a glowing jukebox issuing rock & roll classics, he told me about what comes next. The aim is to develop and licence his iStream principle from Shalford, while at Dunsfold GMA will develop cars for clients and build prototypes. Plus its own IGM designs. \u201cIn very limited quantities \u2013 50 or 60 cars. We don\u2019t want to be another car company, another Ferrari.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s unlike Enzo in another way, too: he values his history, retaining all drawings, notes and records. \u201cBut I can\u2019t think how I had the energy to design all these cars!\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently he\u2019s restoring a BT44B Brabham, too. \u201cI drove every Brabham up to the BT48,\u201d he says. Did he time himself? \u201cOh no. I was good enough to win a few races in South Africa, but I\u2019m no F1 hand. But it was valuable to feel the spring progression, the damping, the gearchange function.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exhibition wasn\u2019t open to the public \u2013 insurance and facilities concerns scuppered that. However, the next best thing is on the way in spring \u2013 the book of Murray\u2019s career. I don\u2019t think it will be dull.<\/p>\n

Later, Gordon was the guest on one of our RAC\/Motor Sport<\/i> talk shows, and as usual sparkled. You can hear that on the Motor Sport <\/i>website. But the conversation carried on once the mikes were off: how George Harrison tried teaching him to play guitar, and he still has Harrison\u2019s annotated scores, about aircraft \u2013 \u201cI\u2019ve designed a simple aircraft on iStream principles, a rugged short-strip machine something like the Britten-Norman Islander\u201d \u2013 and about architecture.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love architecture,\u201d he said, eyes lighting up, flicking through his phone for pictures. \u201cI keep building on to my houses, and I have a thing about polygons. I moved an octagonal church and rebuilt it beside our English place. Even our bedroom is octagonal!\u201d There\u2019s also a place in Scotland, on a little bay in a wild north-western corner of Sutherland. He\u2019s amazed I know it and pulls up pictures. \u201cI\u2019ve designed loads of houses,\u201d he says, \u201cbut this was the first completely new design.\u201d It\u2019s obvious the whole process excited him as much as \u2013 well, everything else he tackles. So just how many hours are there in a Murray day? \u201cI don\u2019t sleep much,\u201d he shrugs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":750,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[],"tags":[167,199],"issue_decade":[121600],"issue_year":[121673],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/54611"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/issue_content"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/750"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/54611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223210,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/54611\/revisions\/223210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54611"},{"taxonomy":"issue_decade","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_decade?post=54611"},{"taxonomy":"issue_year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_year?post=54611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}