Gordon Murray to headline FOS; launch new T.33

Prominent, South African-born businessmen aren’t proving universally popular at the moment. But we’re not discussing Mr Musk’s rights and wrongs today. We’re not talking DOGE; we’re talking DAWG. The top DAWG, in fact: Professor Gordon Murray CBE. The waste this South African slashes isn’t the least bit controversial. Murray slashes weight from cars, and that makes him universally a good egg as far as PH is concerned. So when it was announced that Gordon Murray Automotive will be the headline act at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, celebrating 60 years of Murray’s design and engineering nous, it’s an appointment we’re very happy to endorse.

However, while it’s great news that you’ll be able to gawp at a sculpture honouring GMA along with a collection of Murray’s myriad cars at this year’s FoS – including the Brabham BT46 fan car of yesteryear, the T.50 fan car of today, and everything else besides – it’s what’s new that intrigues us the most. GMA is unveiling a special version of the T.33. It’s called the T.33s. Or at least that’s what we think it is…

For those who aren’t familiar with the ‘regular’ T.33, it’s basically the budget model in GMA’s range. At a mere £1.37m (pre-tax) it’s a cool £1m cheaper than the T.50. Obviously that means it’s not as extreme. For example, the T.33 does without the T.50’s fan-assisted downforce and its tub isn’t made purely of carbon fibre. Instead, the T.33’s downforce comes from what’s called the new Passive Boundary Layer Control (PBLC), which, in effect, is a passive version of the fan. And the tub is made of honeycomb carbon fibre pieces bonded to an aluminium frame. So the T.33 is heavier and has less downforce than the T.50. It’s less powerful, too, because it has a detuned version of the GMA-Cosworth 3.9-litre naturally aspirated V12.

But here’s the thing: everything is relative. The T.33 still weighs around 1,090kg, which is ridiculously light. The PBLC still produces around 30 per cent of the downforce that the fan achieves. And its V12 will still rev all the way to 11,000rpm, producing 615hp in the process. So, as you can see, technically it’s the budget GMA product but the reality is somewhat different: it’s neither cheap nor lacking performance. That’s why all 100 of them were snapped up within a week of orders opening, and why an ‘S’ version is so very appealing – especially because we’ve seen what was achieved with the T.50s.

We’ll have to wait until the FoS to get all the juicy details, but know what to expect based on the T.50s. More power for a start, and we know what the 3.9-litre V12 is capable of. Sure, the T.33s is unlikely to match the 700hp figure of its big brother, the T.50s, but somewhere well north of the standard 615hp is surely on the cards. They’ll be more aero, too, which, if the T.50s is anything to go by, is likely to come from more track-orientated splitters and diffusers rather than huge wings. And, because this is Gordon Murray, if the ‘S’ isn’t considerably lighter than the T.33 it’s based on, we’ll be self-flagellating like a naughty monk. For the T.50s, Murray managed to shave 93kg by ditching the air con and using lighter panels among other things, so a similar weight reduction programme for the T.33s seems reasonable.

As the man himself says: ‘For 60 years I have enjoyed the design and engineering challenge of pushing the boundaries of what’s possible – be that in racing or road cars. The supercars that Gordon Murray Automotive builds today are inspired by every car I’ve designed, raced, and owned. Lightweight design, innovative use of materials, the latest technologies, and even bending the laws of physics come into all we do.’ And we’re happy bending the knee to that. As we said, he’s the perennially popular South African and all-round top DAWG for good reason.