Gordon Murray Automotive today released further details of its T.50 supercar powerplant. It has been known for a while now that Gordon Murray is working with Cosworth to bring his vision of a McLaren F1 successor into focus.
The press release promises the “world’s highest revving, fastest responding, most power dense, and lightest naturally aspirated V12 road car engine”. The specifications which follow do not disappoint!
The Cosworth GMA V12 engine is bespoke built. It measures 3.9 litres, small capacity but with character and power. It delivers 663 PS at 11,500 rpm, with a torque figure of 467 Nm at 9,000 rpm. As a result, it should beg to be thrashed.
It is capable of up to 28,400 revs per second (the F1 engine’s equivalent is around 10,000 revs per second). Which means that from idle to its 12,100 rpm redline takes just 0.3 of a second.
Although peak power is delivered at dizzying rpm’s, Cosworth has designed the engine so that 71% of its torque is available at 2,500 rpm.
To fill some of the performance gap, an additional 50 PS will be generated through a 48-volt integrated starter-generator.
Of course, the engine is expected to be delivered within Gordon Murray’s design brief. His vision for T.50 is a sub-1,000 kg total vehicle weight.
The Gordon Murray T.50’s low weight is achieved through the use of ultra-lightweight components and intelligent packaging. The T.50’s engine has no belts, it’s all gear-driven. All-in, the V12 weighs just 178 kg.
There are innovative touches in terms of experience too. The cold-air ram intake, which sits above the drivers head, acts as a loudspeaker, amplifying engine sound in the cabin.
The power is delivered through a six-speed manual Xtrac gearbox which weighs just 80.5 kg. Both gearbox and engine are completely bespoke to the T.50.
Gordon Murray said: “Above all else, I wanted it to look clean like the BMW S70/2 engine, which had no carbon or plastic covers. It was just inlet trumpets, cam covers, exhaust block and heads, and a few belt-driven ancillaries that I managed to squeeze out of sight. In designing the T.50 V12, I wanted it to be the antidote to the modern supercar where you can’t see the engine beneath carbon covers.”
The global premier of the Gordon Murray T.50 supercar will be on 4 August 2020 at 17:00 UK time.
This looks great to me. I mean the interior, engine build and the mindblowing features! Looking forward to see this on the road!