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Images: K. Jairaj Chaudhri |
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| The legend speaks |
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 Gordon Murray talks candidly about everything from car restoration in India, to Formula 1, the McLaren F1, Mercedes SLR, Bugatti Veryon, McLaren MP4-12C, electric cars, and the future of car production
autoX recently caught up with legendary designer, Prof. Gordon Murray, at the Jaipur Polo Grounds in Delhi during the second Cartier Concours d’Elegance. Here are some excerpts from the interview: |
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autoX: You were in Mumbai for the Cartier Concours in 2008 as well. What’s your view on the cars on show here?
Gordon Murray: Yes, I was here for the event in 2008, and I think this is an absolutely unique event. I can’t see any other Concours, anywhere in the world, that has the same sort of vehicles, atmosphere, and restoration approach. And the passion from the owners in the restoration and the history of the car, it just doesn’t exist anywhere else. Plus the fact, there’s such a good mixture of cars. For instance, I love Americana, and I have a 57 T-Bird at home. Like that, you’ve got a 55 Studebaker here, which is not so much restored, as having just been kept nicely. And my favourite car of the show is the Fiat Millicento. It’s just a time warp – all those controls, instruments, and everything reminds me of being 14 again.
AX: And by restoration approach, you mean creative restoration?
GM: Yes, because you haven’t got the tools or even the methodology. So people have to be inventive. And it’s really easy if you’re inventive, but not passionate, to destroy a car. Half the fun for me, like last time, is talking to the owners and hearing their stories. And when you look around at the tools that people have had, or not had, to restore some of these cars, it would be so easy to screw them up, but they haven’t. And I think that’s absolutely brilliant. I love it!
AX: Other than the 1100, what else do you find is extra special or unique?
GM: While they’re brilliant pieces of engineering, to be honest I’ve just never been a fan of the old Rolls and Bentleys, the pre-war stuff, though I can appreciate the engineering and restoration. I love the 40s, 50s, and 60s American cars, and that little Triumph on show is quite nice as well, not to mention the Lancias – and the Fiat of course.
AX: Going back in time a little bit, looking at your career in Formula 1, which of course was very successful – it was the time when ground affects and aerodynamics was just being understood?
GM: Yes, the 70s was probably the biggest turning point in Formula 1’s history because that’s when aerodynamics really became important and was experimented with. A modern Formula 1 car is 90% aerodynamics.
AX: Is it the right way for Formula 1 to have progressed?
GM: It’s inevitable, unfortunately. I get quite frustrated with Formula 1 regulations. I think it’s quite easy to make Formula 1 cars look different again. The only way to really take away the emphasis on aerodynamics, and the money that’s spent in the wind tunnel, is to write the rules so that the bodywork has be very simple again. If you look at the front wing on a Formula 1 car today, it looks ridiculous – totally, utterly, ridiculous. And there’s absolutely no reason to let that continue. All it does is get knocked off early in the race, puts carbon fibre all over, and gets the Safety Car out, which makes it even more boring to watch. If you want cars to overtake again, you just increase the braking distance. You make the tyres smaller, so that the compound has to be harder, and you take some downforce away to double the braking distances – then you can overtake. It’s that simple. Right now, you have to be strategic, not brave!
AX: Speaking of brave, the McLaren MP4/4 of the 88 season won 15 out of 16 races, and Senna claimed his first Driver’s Championship. What was the secret recipe for that car?
GM: Two things – it was quite a simple car actually. First thing was that it was the same layout as the BT55 Brabham – the one that wasn’t successful – and it had a massive jump forward in lift-over-drag and efficiency. So, aerodynamically again, relative to any other Formula 1 car, it was quicker by a second a lap in just the aerodynamic efficiency. In fact, the first time we ran it, it was a good second-and-a-half quicker than anybody else in the test, but a good second of that was in aerodynamic efficiency – with the lower driver position. The other thing was that the car was reliable because I introduced some extremely strict systems after joining McLaren.
AX: So, is that your design philosophy – simplicity and efficiency?
GM: Absolutely, always has been. If you look at the Brabhams, none of them was complicated.
AX: Naturally, we have to talk about the McLaren F1 – in many ways it’s still the supercar benchmark. Did you have a sense when you were designing it 20 years ago that it would have such a massive and lasting impact?
GM: From the point of view of being such a big part of history – absolutely not, I had no sense of it. But from the sense of it being the best possible focused car I could design – absolutely. I have never been so focused in all my life, for detail and weight saving. But I had no idea that it was going to make such a lasting impact.
AX: Is it true that you simply drew a sketch of a 3-seater sports car and showed it to Ron Dennis while travelling – and that led to the birth of the McLaren F1?
GM: No, I designed a three-seater sports car in 1966 while I was at University, and it just stuck at the back of my mind. I always thought that it would be a great layout for the owner to feel a bit more special – with good visibility, no pedal offsets, and all the things that made the early 80’s supercars bad.
AX: You also worked on the Mercedes McLaren SLR – what would you have done differently in that project if you had a choice?
GM: Well, the only thing that we didn’t do was the styling – that was Mercedes Benz. And I would never have done that to the car – it was just a bit too ‘bling’ for me. As a piece of engineering, I’m still very proud of that car. The structure and the method of making the carbon fibre was quite revolutionary. But, as a car, it had too many cooks – it had too many people making the decisions, whereas the F1 was totally focused.
AX: You’ve also been quite vocal about the Bugatti Veryon.
GM: I’ve driven it at the race track and on the roads in Sicily, and it’s not a sports car. It’s a very fast express train – I suppose you can call it – but it’s not a sports car. I don’t think that the Veyron was ever conceived as it ended up. I think somebody just said that it’s going to have a 1,000 horsepower, and that’s going to cause 1,000 problems, but we’re just going to have to solve the problems as and when they happen. And that’s about as far from being pure as you can get. If you take the F1 as a fully focused paper study turned into a car, the Veyron starts at the other end.
AX: McLaren have attempted to go back to being pure with the MP4-12C, do you see that as a spiritual successor to the F1?
GM: No, I don’t think so. I think it’s probably got too many cooks again.
AX: Considering the fact that manufacturers now have to meet much more stringent safety norms, which add weight, not to mention stricter emissions and efficiency norms, do you think developing a true successor to the F1 will ever be possible?
GM: Definitely, I would love to do one. I think I’ve still got one supercar left in me.
AX: Based on your work on the T25 and T27 project – do you believe the future of mobility is electric?
GM: No. Electric cars will have a place in niche markets, particularly in cities. But the electric cars won’t go anywhere till we have second and third generation battery technology. At the moment, batteries are too expensive and too unstable. There is a niche market right now for a certain number of electric vehicles in inner cities. But to be realy honest, a lightweight, small petrol car makes more sense.
AX: So is the T27 going to see production?
GM: I hope so. Part of our commitment to the government – because it’s a 50% government funded programme – is that we should try and get it made in the UK if possible. We are talking to a consortium right now to see if we can make it happen. And with iStream you can make the petrol and electric car in the same factory, which I think would be a good insurance policy because the assessment of take-up on electric volumes is very varied. In fact, the best figure and worst figure I’ve seen are 80% apart. So, if you’re producing electric and petrol cars on the same chassis, which you can do with iStream, you’ve got that insurance.
AX: Can you tell us a little more
about iStream?
GM: Well, I’ve been working on it for 12 years. It’s a new way of making high volume cars that’s very light and very strong, and is only 10% of the capital investment of stamped steel. It also uses 60% less energy to manufacture than stamped steel. What it really delivers is less emissions and less fuel consumption through light weight. And it’s a lot simpler than stamped steel – it’s a composite monocoque on some steel tubes basically. It’s a composite that we’ve developed, which is very low cost – it’s not like carbon, which is horrendously expensive. Very low cost, very short cycle time to make – we can actually make the monocoque in 100 seconds.
AX: What is your greatest design today when you look back?
GM: I don’t know, probably the F1 I think. |
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