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BREAKING: Gordon Murray to design final supercar

Posted by Hootan Mahallati | September 03, 2009 | In mclaren news supercars

When the designer of what many consider as being the most amazing supercar of all time, the McLaren F1, says he will design one more supercar, you listen. Car reports that Gordon Murray, a certified genius, will design another supercar that is even more radical than the F1. Murray hopes to start work on his final supercar after having sold several iStream licenses. iStream is the technology Murray has pioneered as a more efficient way of bulding cars, including his T25 city cars.

Murray insists that he will not pursue outright horsepower and speed with his next supercar, goal posts that he now thinks are archaic and will spell doom for the supercar species. "I will do one more supercar – but it’ll be a new breed," Murray revealed. "The way supercars are done right now, they’ve got no future at all."

Murray promises that the new car will be much lighter, smaller and more involving than the F1. He will pick up where he left off, with the stillborn P8, an F1 successor he designed before leaving McLaren. "The P8 was going to be a really funky ultra-lightweight sort of F2, with much more emphasis on handling and excitement," he said.

What does Murray think of the upcoming new McLaren, the P11 that has been caught testing of late? "It’s bound to disappoint," said Murray. "There’s no point in trying to outdo the F1, they’ll never do it. The world has moved on and anyone who thinks the market for Gallardo-type cars is going to bounce back to levels of two or three years ago is dreaming." Murray continued, "From what I’ve heard, McLaren has gone back to producing a big car with a heavy engine. People will inevitably see it as a successor to the F1 but I can’t see any way in which people aren’t going to be disappointed. They’ve just taken the wrong route for it. That’s a shame."

To commemorate this news, we are posting a video of a very special F1: the 1995 Le Mans-winning racing chassis number 10 McLaren F1 GTR owned by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason. Although detuned to 'only' 620 hp and slowed to 180 mph instead of 240 mph through different gearing, the racing F1 had straight-cut gears and less muffling that made for an incredibly loud car. You can see that Autocar's Steve Sutcliffe, who is barely ever fazed even when driving outrageous supercars, is overcome by the visceral savagery of this F1.

[Sources: Car and Autocar]

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