Gordon Murray’s Track-Only GMA T.50s Brings 720 HP With Just 1,962 Pounds
Limited to 25 units over the 100 road cars, Murray’s track car will produce 3,300-pounds of downforce.
Gordon Murray Automotive's T.50 supercar is a lightweight engineering marvel with the most advanced fan-assisted aero package available, and a 4.0-liter V12 that revs to 12,100 rpm in just 0.3 seconds. Weighing just 2,173 pounds, the road car is already going to be faster around a circuit than most things on four wheels, yet to elevate its track performance even further, GMA is set to build a T.50 with even higher all-around performance.
Meet the GMA T.50s. Murray says he and his team have changed "hundreds of parts to optimise the car for racing and track use”, probably starting with the Xtrac six-speed manual that's likely to be replaced with a sequential unit for the quickest shifts all-day long. The V12 will also produce 700 horsepower on its own, a figure that will climb up to 720 horses using the car's larger cold air ram induction system.
What GMA will also say at this point is that with the fan working only in high-downforce mode, combined with the even more aggressive diffuser, splitter and central-finned fixed wing, the T.50s will generate over 3,300 pounds of downforce—170 percent more than its weight at 1,962 pounds.
Top Gear reports that each T.50s customer will get a car tailored to their own exact specifications. Too much downforce? They'll dial that down for you and adjust the aerodynamics accordingly, Murray said. Here's what he told the car pub:
We ask if the T.50s is Murray letting the T.50 supercar off the leash. “That’s exactly what it is. I’ve gone, ‘how wild can we go?’. This is not a tarted-up road car with a wing on the back. It’s a pretty serious machine.” Though, there’ll still be time for some fun. “I’d like every single car to be different,” says Murray. “Not just in spec and outrageous colour schemes to go with the outrageous body, but also giving personal attention to each driver.”
Only 25 of these will be built, Top Gear reports, and they'll cost £3.1 million each before taxes. That's about $4.2 million in the U.S, and on top of that, about half the allocations are already spoken for. You're more likely to see a unicorn at your next track day than one of these.
Such a car could easily become an official WEC contender, although Murray says that the T.50 is so light already, it would require too much ballast for the upcoming hypercar class. Maybe it needs a detune then.
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