Gordon Murray Automotive – the British manufacturer founded by former Formula 1 designer Ian Gordon Murray – started the production of its first supercar, the T.50, back in March this year. Before kicking off the assembly process, the automaker put the T.50 through a rigorous testing program, which included cold winter tests and special airbag calibrations. The first examples are now ready to be delivered to their new owners but not before one final evaluation.
The Top Gear crew had the privilege of driving one of the T.50’s prototypes. The media’s Head of Car Testing, Ollie Marriage, took the supercar on a 900-mile trip across Spain. Marriage drove the supercar from Barcelona to Bilbao via the mountain roads of the Spanish Pyrenees. That’s the perfect place to sample the V12 machine’s cornering, acceleration, and braking. What are the test driver’s first impressions?
“This is not a lightweight car to operate. It’s a lightweight car to drive but the operation of it, the steering, the clutch, and the gear change takes a deliberate hand. The reward of it, the satisfaction of it is getting all of those things right,” Marriage explains.
In the video attached at the top, you can also learn interesting details about the supercar from its chief engineer. Or, rather, he gives operational information – from how to open the doors and get in the car to how to use the AC system, how to charge a phone, where to store stuff, and what the different controls do. And this is something most of us didn’t know because the T.50 isn’t just a regular car. It’s “possibly the last analog supercar,” as Marriage puts it.
Oh, don’t let that PS4 badge on the side fool you – it has nothing to do with PlayStation. Instead, this reflects the fact that the car tested by Top Gear is the final pre-series prototype of the T.50 built before it went into production. How does it feel on the road? How’s the engine sound in tunnels? Can you get through a toll booth with it? The answers to all those questions – and many more – are in the video.
