[Autoweek]
On the first anniversary of the founding of his new company, British car designer Gordon Murray--yes, that Gordon Murray of McLaren F1 fame--has revealed a radical city car with dimensions so tiny they're almost impossible to comprehend.
With a footprint about two-thirds that of the diminutive Smart and nearly half that of the new Mini, the Gordon Murray Design T25 may well deliver on Murray's promise to create a new class of small car."The work completed so far promises to revolutionize the future of automotive production and the impact that personal transportation has on the environment," says Murray.Based on these illustrations, which the company says are to scale, the T25 will be 7.9 feet long and 4.3 feet wide, easily making it one of the smallest cars conceived in recent decades. (For comparison, the Smart is 8.8 feet long and 5.1 feet wide, and the new Mini is 12.1 feet long and 5.5 feet wide. Even the low-cost Tata Nano, a small car aimed at motorizing hundreds of millions of poor Indians, is 10.2 feet long and 4.9 feet wide.)Murray reckons that three of his cars could be parked sideways in a typical European-sized parking bay, which is around 16.5 feet long and 6.6 feet wide. The car will weigh in at 1210 lbs.Despite the tiny dimensions, Murray promises compliance with global safety and emissions standards.His team, based near Guildford in England in buildings that used to house Ferrari's F1 engineering center in the mid-1990s, are 12 months into the two-year project to build a series of prototypes of the tiny city car.The design also promises a revolutionary manufacturing process, innovative use of materials and a flexible interior. The interior is said to include at least four seats, which would be a major achievement. The Smart seats only two.Murray doesn't plan to put the T25 into production himself, preferring to sell the design to an outside manufacturer. But to prove the concept works, Murray plans to take it to running prototype stage, a process that will absorb the next year's efforts. The first running car could be ready as early as 2009.A U.S. version of the T25 is also on the drawing board, planned with more generous dimensions and possibly three rows of seats.Backing for the project comes from two main sources, one in the United States and the other in the United Kingdom. The U.S. investor is Mohr Davidow Ventures, a start-up venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley and with projects worth $1.4 billion under management.The British investor is parts supplier Caparo Group. It has operations in the United States, India and China, and supplies body parts for the Nano.Dolby-like idea farm?The development of the fledgling automotive design consultancy set up by Murray can be likened to Dolby, the audio technology company, note California venture capitalists backing the British start-up."The closest thing that I can think of that we've got with Gordon Murray Design is how Dolby has developed over the years into a global technology brand," says Jonathan Feiber, general partner of Silicon Valley investor Mohr Davidow Ventures.Dolby started in 1965 designing noise-reduction technology. It went public in 2007, making founder Ray Dolby a billionaire. Dolby doesn't make products but instead licenses its technology to manufacturers, something that Gordon Murray Design is expected to do with car technology that it invents.The second investor, automotive parts supplier Caparo Group, takes a similar risk by investing in ideas that can be exploited commercially, rather than by carmaking. "We're really investing in intellectual property and ideas and design," says CEO Angad Paul, "and this is one of the best groups of automotive designers in the world."Murray has assembled a team of 29 mainly young engineers, many of whom have worked in F1 and sports cars at McLaren. They are housed in a light-industrial building in Guildford that is well stocked with CAD, CNC and prototype-building equipment.Murray's highest-profile project is the T25, which he hopes will retail for about £5500 ($10,800). "We think we'll revolutionize the world of personal transportation with this car," Murray says.GMD and its investors won't build the T25; instead it is selling the design and its radical manufacturing method to others looking for a breakthrough product--just as audio expert Dolby pioneered in the '60s and '70s."Some of the people we're talking to are just looking at the manufacturing method, not the car and its styling," says Murray.The T25 is based on a super-strong frame capable of passing European and Asian crash standards, but not U.S. standards, and is clad in panels made from recycled plastic.The material and joining methods are still secret, though Murray says it doesn't use stamped steel. "There are a few pressed parts for small brackets and the like and that's it," he says.