Ngambek With Yamaha, Gordon Murray's Affordable Sport Car Project Officially Stopped

Gordon Murray Design. (Doc. GMA)

JAKARTA - The automotive industry appears to be increasingly obsessed with electric cars, and as a result, the affordable sports car project promoted by Gordon Murray must be discontinued. Murray, the figure known as the mastermind behind McLaren F1, officially announced that the sport car project, which does not yet have a permanent name, previously to be known as T.43, has ended, as reported by Road & Track, August 22.

It is known, Gordon Murray announced his intention to develop this affordable sports car in 2018, and this plan has drawn a huge response from car enthusiasts. The T.43 car was promised to become a medium-engine sports car with a weight of about 848 kg. The car will use a turbo-powered three-cylinder engine such as the Glolla GR, with a power target of around 260 dk. And no less attractive, this small engine power will be channeled to the rear wheels via manual transmission of six accelerations. If that's not impressive enough, the base price is estimated to be below 50.000 US dollars or around Rp. 762 million.

Then, who can be blamed for the failure of T.43 to reach the production stage? As it turns out, quoted from Carbuzz, August 23, Yamaha in charge, along with the electrification trend. Gordon Murray collaborated with Yamaha to produce this legendary car, they have even built some functional prototypes. However, leadership changes in Yamaha resulted in the project being canceled.

"The car should have been produced by now for four years. The business plan we made for them is 5,000 units each year. So there should be 20,000 of them out there by now," said Murray.

Of course, Gordon Murray, McLaren F1's "father", can look for other big producers to collaborate on, right? As it turns out, the answer is no.

"The problem now is everyone wants an electric car. Timing to build the car was there at the time. And that opportunity was over," Murray said.

In addition, T.43 will also not be in accordance with today's GMA (Gordon Murray Automotive) business model. GMA currently only produces T.50 and T.33, both available with or without a roof. T.50 also has a track-only variant in honor of Niki Lauda. All of these machines are very exclusive and aimed at those who do not hesitate to spend millions of dollars on new cars. Murray wants to keep the GMA model exclusive, ensuring every vehicle leaving the factory will not lose value. Adding bulk products to the portfolio will violate the updated GMA business model.

"We promised not to make more than a hundred units of anything," Murray said. "That's one of our principles. Maybe we'll make fewer, but we won't make more," he concluded.