A main road from England's south coast to London could hold the key to revolutionising the motoring industry. Back in 1993, Gordon Murray was sitting in a traffic jam on the A3 and thought to himself "this can't be sustainable". So the South African-born designer started mulling over plans for a ground-breaking new car. Sixteen years on, that project has become one of the most talked about car in the world, the mysterious T25, a car Murray promises will change the way cars are designed, built and driven for the future.
Such a statement would normally be met with howls of derision, but Murray's previous track record would suggest he can deliver. The 62-year-old was responsible for the McLaren F1 and Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, not to mention a host of Formula 1 championship- winning cars driven by the likes of Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and Nelson Piquet. And Murray has every confidence that he and his team of designers based in Surrey, England, are on the edge of something major.
"I've been thinking about this since 1993 but only started working on it in 1999," he said, "and it's only in the last three or four years that we've really ramped it up. "What we've basically done is completely throw away the rule book and change the way we make cars. Cars have been made roughly the same way for 100 years, but that doesn't allow enough scope for new materials or to manufacture things environmentally. We're basically starting all over again with everything."
No one knows for certain whether Murray can deliver on his promise. For now, the T25 has been kept heavily under wraps as Murray and his team bid to protect the intellectual property rights of the vehicle and the manufacturing process. The key to that lies in the materials used to build the T25, and its designer is giving little away. "That's our intellectual property," he said. "We're using F1 technology and thinking, but with low-cost materials. And that's the crux of the work. We've got the patents in place but we still don't want to give much away while we're in the process of talking about licences globally."
Gordon Murray Design are in discussions with 16 different companies about licences to manufacture the T25 around the world. Just one is based in the UK while, interestingly, just five are current car manufacturers. "That's the big thing," he said. "There's now nothing to stop, say, a firm like Sony from building a car. The whole process of setting up a plant to be capable of producing cars is the expensive bit. At the moment, that's about a billion Euros. We can do that for a fraction of the cost with our manufacturing model.
"For existing car companies, that cost is peanuts, maybe £50 million to get everything in place while companies that don't have it, it would cost about £100m and, for that sort of thing, it's a very low investment." Murray is proposing four different designs for the T25 ranging in cost from £5,500 (Dh29,650) to £7,500 (Dh40,420) while the cars themselves will take up a third of the parking space of a normal vehicle, capable of parking sideways similar to the likes of the smart fortwo, which Murray currently drives.
Despite his past penchant for making fast and sleek cars, Murray is vaguely obsessed with small cars: "I've always loved them." Despite some of the less-than-green cars he has designed, the environmental impact is one of his driving forces. "It didn't used to be," he said, "but that's obviously changed with the times. This is now incredibly green - it's about reducing emissions and the way we drive as well as reducing costs."
That double message makes the T25 immensely timely as international governments look at ways to cut down emissions while car buyers look for cheaper alternatives in a global recession. However, Murray laughs off suggestions that he has timed things to perfection. "The recent situation in the last year or so has obviously helped us so we've got a bit lucky in that respect," he adds. The T25 could be on the road as soon as 2012 should any single company sign up for a licence today and go ahead with Murray's current designs. But he readily admits there were times when he feared the vehicle might never come to fruition.
"It's easy to give up sometimes," he recalled. "It's all about problem solving and when you're trying to reinvent the manufacturing process that problem solving becomes even bigger. There were times when the individual problem became so big that I thought we couldn't overcome it." One of the overriding factors in his design is weight. In short, Murray is obsessed with weight and one gets the impression he rams this point home to his staff, most of whom joined him from McLaren when he left the firm in 2005.
"We're always looking ways at making things lighter and cheaper if at all possible," he said. "It's all about discipline and seeing where we can save grams and pennies wherever possible." Despite a primary target of cutting down on weight - the aim for the T25 is to shed 400kg from your average hatchback - none of it will come at the expense of safety. "In fact, the T25 will be incredibly robust and safe with the materials we're using," he said. "There's no problem in that regard."
The T25 is the 25th car that Murray has designed, hence its title. And the car is a far cry from some of the projects he dealt with during his days in F1 and producing road cars for McLaren. But as for where it ranks in his 40-plus years of designing cars, he has no doubt. "This is the top really because it's a much bigger challenge than, say a sports car or a Le Mans or GP car," he admitted. "This is the most difficult bit of design work I've ever done. We have the potential to do something pretty special here and it's clear a change is required. It's an exciting time. And I don't want to sound too big-headed but there hasn't been anything like this for years and years."
As for his next favourite car on the list, Murray goes back to F1 and his time at Brabham with then team boss Bernie Ecclestone, now F1's promoter, and the turbo-powered BT52, which took Piquet to the title in the 1983 season. "That year the cars were so radical and new," said Murray. "I loved it." Murray's love affair with F1, however, ended a long time ago, having quit the sport nearly 20 years ago. He believes the design side of things in the sport is now "too boring".
"I love all the rule changes for this season and it's certainly made it a lot more exciting," he said. "But a bigger change is needed, almost a holistic reinvention. They should say that in three years the budget will be this and deal with it. "How much does a fan watching in the stands care about a carbon fibre wishbone that a team spends 100 hours working on in a wind tunnel to save hundredths of a second. Not a lot but the teams do it because everyone does it. I'm all for cutting the costs and then the most innovative teams will prosper.
"That's what I loved about F1 in my day. I'd be lying in the bath at the weekend and come up with an idea. We'd then design it on the Monday, build it on the Tuesday, test it on the Wednesday and, by the weekend, we'd managed to save nearly one-and-a-half seconds a lap on our rivals. That was a buzz. "Big changes like that don't happen any more and I'm not saying it was tougher back then. If anything, it's far harder to get the edge on your rivals. There are such minor tweaks and that doesn't really interest me."
As for his tip for the title, Murray believes it is a straight race between Brawn GP and Red Bull. "In terms of grip to the road, those are the best two, but I don't know how well they are both run," he said. "Whichever team is run the better will win the title." For now, though, Murray has bigger concerns, namely overhauling the motoring industry. He is brimming with confidence that globally he can change the way cars are made forever and he says car manufacturers should take note.
"They should be nervous," he said. "Five years ago, they wouldn't have batted an eyelid at this, but I think they're beginning to realise that this is the future."
