Gordon Murray’s cars from T.1 to T.50 – powered by Shell V-Power

Welcome to Gordon Murray from T1 to T50, a life in cars sponsored by new and improved Shell V-Power. We're privileged to be here today at Gordon Murray Automotive Headquarters in South East England and as well as speaking to the man himself, we'll also be chatting to IndyCar legend Dario Franchitti, who is now an essential part of the GMA team. There's no doubt an incredible story to be told here, so let's start by taking a look at where it all began. So this is where it all started. 1964, as a 17 year old, I was desperate to go motor racing actually from about six years old. I wanted to be a racing driver and nothing else. Of course, in those days, nothing to do with design, but I had no money. The usual story with youngsters and back in the 60s. So I had to design and build my own car and I built this over a period of two years and then raced in 67 and 68. Wow. I mean, it looks incredible in this orange paint as well, but what was the main thing rather than, you know, as you said, rather than design, what was the main principle in making it fast, which obviously as a racing car, that's the most important thing. Well, growing up as a teenager, Colin Chapman was my hero and I followed in his footsteps, if you like, with making something very simple and very light and very easy to drive. This car was a good 80 kilos lighter than the other contemporary cars of its time in this class. So that was a contributing factor to me actually winning some races back then. When you started to build this, what skills did you have? Very little actually. My dad was a motor mechanic, which of course helped me enormously and he taught me how to gas weld. So I welded the frame, I made the steering wheel, I made the fuel tank, I made all the suspension. So I had to learn to weld to make the car in the first place. Beautiful welding here, Gordon. Yeah, this one's better than the original, I have to say. But you even built the engine yourself? I did, yes. Actually, I was into engine design in those days and I was doing engine design at technical college. So I did the, once again, I didn't have the money to go to buy European parts because this was in South Africa, of course. So I had to make my own pistons to get the compression ratio up and made my own camshaft, inlet manifold, exhaust manifold. And we had to run on those days on ABGAS and we needed a much higher compression ratio. So I had to hand make pistons to get the compression ratio right. Wasn't that part of the Shell sponsorship? That was, that's where Shell came in. So Shell supplied, in return for running a sticker on the car, Shell supplied the ABGAS. So you didn't write to them or anything? No, they actually came and offered people racing at the circuit sponsorship. And if you think about it, that was 66, 67, that period. So it was quite early for sponsorship. And did I read that you were absolutely fanatical about balancing everything perfectly? Indeed, yes. That was, once again, that came down to cost. So when you were building the engine, you either bought expensive racing parts from the UK, or you used all the standard parts and lightened them and balanced them to within a millimetre of their life to make them last and rev to 8,000 revs. And that's what I chose to do because I didn't have the money to buy the expensive parts from the UK. So I balanced everything that moves, pushrods, rockers, crank, clutch, lighten the flywheel, and everything was balanced right down to the nth degree. And it worked? It revved to 8,000? It revved to 8,000 for two seasons. It didn't blow up, so something worked. Wow, that is impressive. And you won in it? I did, yes. I won some hill climbs and I won my class. Class A sports car racing was up to 1,100cc and I won my class a couple of times. That all worked then. Now, am I right in thinking that you designed this on paper in your bedroom, the whole car? Indeed, yes. Everything was drawing boards, of course, in those days and I was using drawing boards at work and I had a drawing board in my bedroom and this was all drawn. In fact, we've got the original drawings just over here. Wow, look at that. So these two, the assembly and the chassis drawing are actually the original drawings, not copies, they're actually the original drawings from the mid-60s of this motorcar. And of course, as I said, everything was done on a drawing board in those days. And if we come over here, I'll show you. Just about everything in this room is originally from the sort of mid-60s. These are the actual trophies of the races I did manage to win and the drawing instruments on the desk have drawn five World Championship Formula One cars and the McLaren F1. And that drawing machine there was my 18th birthday present from my parents. And that's pretty similar to a drawing machine that I still have in my office here. And in fact, all the cars we draw are on that sort of machine, including the T50. Including the T50, and I'm pleased you mentioned that because I think that is quite incredible that you still design on paper. That's something that's very different to other contemporary car designers. Yeah, of course, that's the concept of the car. And then, of course, it gets chucked over the wall to everybody on CAD. Yeah, exactly, for them to do their bit. But we can see the T50 here. It's looking fantastic, as always. Talk us through a little bit about what makes this car so special, and in particular, how the design ideas have gone from the T1 and into the T50. I think the principles, as we were talking about earlier around T1, the principles are exactly the same. I've always used the same principles. So, beautiful engineering simplicity and lightweight, but all about the driving experience and the sort of feel. And as I said earlier, the fact that I used to drive my own cars, I think really helps because when I'm drawing something, I can imagine what it's going to be like to drive, whether it's controls or suspension or feeling. So, the same principles we used all those years ago are in T50. And tell us a little bit about what makes this really stand out now as a contemporary road car. Well, I think the sort of highlights, of course, are things like the weight of the car. A thousand kilo supercar these days is quite unheard of. Completely, yeah. The central driving position is very key to the feeling of driving the motor car and the placing of the motor car, as Dario will testify. And of course, the crowning glory of this car is the brand new V12. I mean, that is absolutely the cutting edge of any internal combustion engine. The centre driving position is very interesting because every car you drive, there's a compromise left to right. Asymmetric, you've got the A-pillar getting in your way, it feels different as you turn left to right. Not in this, completely symmetrical. And I don't know why more people didn't think of it before you did it with the F1. It just makes perfect sense and it's a big part of the experience of driving this car. Yeah, absolutely. You're lucky enough to have driven a lot of cars where you're sitting bang in the middle. Do you feel like there are similarities between the cars that you've raced and between the T50 and that seating position and the advantages that you get naturally from it? Yeah, it does go back to feeling very much like driving an Indy car or an F1 car, any of that stuff, because it just feels completely normal and there's just that lack of compromise. As I said, it makes perfect sense. Yeah, absolutely. Going back to the engine, because the engine is astonishing, as you pointed out, but of all the engines that you could have done, why is it a 4-litre V12? I think, as I say, I grew up on engines. I was an engine designer before I was a chassis designer. And multi-cylinder engines have much more character the way they deliver the torque, the way they sound. And if you keep them small enough in capacity, the engine response as well is very quick. And the ultimate for me is 12-cylinders. V8s are heavily compromised on balance and the way they deliver torque. And the revs, of course, are limited on an 8. And anything beyond a 12 is a bit excessive, really, where friction takes over from producing power. So the V12 for me is the absolute pure balanced engine, especially if you can get the V around 60 degrees where the primary balance is perfect. The packaging of it is perfect too. It's such a small unit when you actually see the engine itself. It's so tight. And yeah, when you see the car, you forget the size of this car. Three people in it. But it's very small and you drive it on the road and you actually can stay in your own lane on a normal B road and still play around with your line a little bit, which is... I haven't driven a modern car that's able to do that. No, it's almost like witchcraft. It's like the TARDIS, because I was lucky enough to sit in this car a couple of years ago. And yeah, there's so much space on the inside. But as you said, when you come out of it and you look at how it sits and it's so compact still. Yeah, really extraordinary. Should we go and take a look at the engine? I think we should. I mean, we keep coming back to the engine. But as you said, it is one of the most incredible parts of the car. I mean, Gordon, explain why you use Shell V-Power when developing these engines and why that is your fuel of choice. Well, I've worked with high performance engines all my life, but this, from a road car, normally aspirated engine point of view, this is the most extreme engine in the world. And of course, because it has the highest compression ratio, the highest revs, the highest and fastest response time, we just need the best fuel available. Yeah, absolutely. In terms of the real technical specifics, what advantage does the composition of Shell V-Power, what does it give you in terms of getting that extra performance and also the ability to run an engine as highly strong as this? I think it comes down to the fact that it has got the highest compression ratio and everything is right on the limit. So when you're running an internal combustion engine right close to the limit like that, the fuel makes a huge difference to the combustion from the point of view of not just longevity, but the actual performance and the throttle response, the injection. I mean, this has two injectors in each port, for example, so the fueling of the engine is probably the single most important thing. And what kind of compromises do you think you'd have to make if, for example, a fuel such as V-Power, it wasn't around and you had to use a more run-of-the-mill fuel? That's pretty easy because you'd have to drop the compression ratio for a start and you'd have to be much more careful and more conservative on the the way we inject the fuel into the engine and you would lose power and efficiency. It's almost like a split personality engine though, isn't it? Because somewhere below 6,000, it's got so much torque, it's so drivable. You're going through a village, you just, fifth gear, you drive around. It's then when it gets after 6,000, things start getting really interesting. It's a bit Jekyll and Hyde. It is a bit Jekyll and Hyde, but the torque available was, that's what surprised me about it. I expected this very highly strung V12, you know, having to, shunting along in traffic, that kind of stuff. It couldn't, nothing could be further from the truth. It drives like a very smooth car and then when you want to have some fun with it, you get it above sort of the 6,000 area and it just goes. Well, that's a really good point because the engine mapping is the single most important thing, you know, and of course that comes down to the fuel again and the fuel injection and of course camshaft profiles and things like that. But the way the engine is fueled gives you the smoothness low down and the power up the top. So the fuel and the fueling of the engine is absolutely critical for a motor like this. Yeah, and do I remember correctly that you had a conversation with Cosworth about having different engine maps which the driver could select in the car and you were quite insistent that, no, we need two engine maps because we need to make sure there's enough torque. You can hear it, yeah, you can hear it. Even when it's just idling, it sounds incredible. But yeah, I was saying about how even when you're just driving around normally, you need to have more torque, but actually it turned out that you only needed one engine map and what they'd already created was fine. Yeah, I have to admit I was completely wrong. You have to bear in mind, I grew up in the 60s where you had revs and power or torque. There was no compromise in those days. But the job that Cosworth had done on this motor, we actually don't need those two sort of drive modes, if you like. Yeah, no, absolutely. You've got to get in this car and you've got to experience this engine at some point. It is completely addictive. I know, I really do want to, I think one day. You could ask a man. Yeah, him, absolutely. I mean, obviously, this is one of the greatest engines ever created, I'm sure, possibly one of perhaps the best engine ever created, but for people that are driving their cars around that perhaps haven't got an engine as advanced as this, I mean, do you still use Shell V-Power in your cars that are more normal? I do, actually. I use the local Shell garage near Shelford, near my office, but I drive high-performance and classic cars a lot in summer and I definitely use the V-Power for that, for those cars, because it suits, those are very high compression ratios as well, even though they're older cars and I use it all the time. Today's video is sponsored by new and improved Shell V-Power that now cleans up to 100% of critical engine parts with every fill and keeps your engine running like new. But what does that really mean? Well, I'm going to talk to one of Shell's fuel scientists to get an understanding of how a fuel can actually clean the likes of your inlet valves and fuel injectors, and how that will ultimately maximise your engine's performance. We know Gordon Murray loves Shell V-Power for his supercars, but what we want to hear is why it's effective in your everyday car. I'm meeting Jo, a fuel scientist at Shell, to give us the details. So Jo, talk us through the benefits of new and improved Shell V-Power and also the development process. Absolutely. So this is our latest generation of Shell V-Power. It's new and improved and it's been developed by our global team of scientists and engineers. And additionally, we work with the team that developed fuels for Scuderia Ferrari. So all that knowledge and that expertise and that heritage and innovation goes into our latest fuels. But for this generation of fuels, it's all about cleanliness and deposits that can form on critical parts of the engine. And depending on the engine technology, those critical engine parts do change. Okay, and what can Shell V-Power do to rejuvenate my engine and keep it in the best condition? Okay, so we'll start with gasoline or petrol engine technology and port fuel injection. So the critical part of the engine is the inlet valve. And we have those in this T50 engine here. Yeah. So here we have some examples of some valves. So here's one from T50. Yeah, nice. And these are a clean and a dirty valve from a road engine. Oh, that's a lot heavier. And that even, I mean, that's heavier still. So this is really light. That's heavier. But without the deposits on it, that's even heavier still. So this is all part of the technology now. We've got cleaning technology that helps to clean away these harmful deposits that can form over time or with regular fuels, and that can impact the performance of the engine. So if we picture where the inlet valve is located, the fuel and air are passing over the back of the inlet valve, and the inlet valve is hot. So deposits and tough carbonaceous deposits can start to form on the back of the inlet valve. And that impacts how fuel and air flow into the combustion chamber where they're burnt. And if we look really closely, James, we can see how those deposits look like a sponge. They do, yeah. I mean, it sounds to me like a cleaner engine is a more powerful, more efficient, a better engine. Absolutely. So when the engineers designed the engine, all these surfaces are clean and free of deposits. So that surface is smooth, and the fuel and air can pass into the combustion chamber in the right amount and at the right time. So the cleaning technology that we have in our Shell V-Power can control and remove up to 100% of those harmful deposits. That then means the engine's running as it was designed to. So it means we can restore or rejuvenate the performance of older engines and newer engines as well, and take them back to light new. Great. So that's port fuel injection, where the fuel's injected indirectly into the combustion chamber. So the technology also works in direct injection petrol engines as well. So this is a cutaway of a direct injection engine. So here we have the fuel injector located, and the fuel injector tip is sitting in the combustion chamber. That environment is harsh, it's hot, and it's high pressures. So now the critical part that we want to talk about is the fuel injector tip. So deposits can start to form now on the fuel injector tip. There's a series of holes, and those deposits can block the fuel and prevent it from entering the combustion chamber, and it also impacts how it's sprayed into the combustion chamber. So again we can think of a showerhead, where we've got, if we get scale on our showerhead, it impacts on the water flow. Yeah absolutely. It's the same idea. So again if we can control those deposits, up to 100% remove those deposits, we'll get a nice spray of fuel into the combustion chamber, which helps with optimum combustion, helps to rejuvenate the performance of the engine. Got it. Okay. I think the big takeaway for me here is that obviously Shell V-Power is fantastic for engines such as the one using the T50, but also in your everyday car you still want a fuel that can clean it and keep it its most efficient. So it is applicable to basically anything really. Absolutely. Absolutely. Newer and older engines as well. Brilliant. Well I have been using Shell V-Power in my cars when I can put it in, so I'm pleased that it's making a difference and keeping my engine nice and clean. Absolutely. Great. Thank you very much. Well I thought I knew about engines and the fuel that they run on, but even so I've learned a huge amount today, especially on the difference that Shell V-Power can make. And now I've got to say I'm really excited. I'm going to the world's first media drive in the T50. We're going to take it. Oh, Dario, are you going? Hey, I'm going to put some fuel in it. Oh, see you later. See you then. Gordon Murray's T50 is a realisation of a dream that started over 50 years ago. From Idea to Canvas to T1, F1 and finally T50, Shell has been there almost every step of the way. For outstanding performance and efficiency, it's the only fuel for the job. So just don't be surprised if next time you go to fill up, someone beats you to the pump. How have you done that? Well, it's half the weight of yours. Yeah, but that's 550 more horsepower. Could be in the driving as well, you know.