The Interview

iven the nature of Low Flying‘s readership it might seem almost patronising to write an introduction to this piece. If you know anything about GFormula One design or about the fi rst (and arguably still the best) ‘hypercar’ ever made - the McLaren F1 - then Professor Ian Gordon Murray won’t need any introduction from me. Feel free to cut straight to the chase and read Gordon’s thoughts on my questions, but be warned - no punches are pulled. Do try to remember his full name though as it helps with the answer to my fi rst question. If however, you are reading this Lowfl ying in the dentist’ s waiting room whilst angsting about the root canal work you’re about to have done and this magazine just seemed to offer a better read than the ratty copies of Hello on offer, this intro is just for you. Gordon Murray was born in Durban in 1946. He emigrated to the UK in 1969 and worked for , becoming head designer in 1973 and going on to design some of the most beautiful Grand Prix cars ever made, the BT 44 and BT 52 being especially outstanding. Successful too, with 22 Grand Prix victories for drivers including Reutemann, Lauda, Watson and, of course, , who won two Drivers’ Championships in a Brabham. Like all great designers, Murray can think a very long way outside the box and the astonishing BT46B ‘fan car’ and his re-introduction of fuel stops to Grand Prix racing in 1983 bear witness to this. He moved to join McLaren as Technical Director and was thus part of the team which so dominated with the all- conquering, if highly volatile, combination of Prost and Senna. then tasked Murray with producing the ultimate sports car and with the help of a mighty BMW V12, the McLaren F1 tore up the supercar rule book. The F1 was only ever intended to be a road car but with a tiny budget of £750k and a couple of days’ wind tunnel work the F1 GTR was created, which went on to win Le Mans at the fi rst attempt. Murray once commented that his only regret was that they didn’t then drive it back home on public roads… In 2007, the Gordon Murray Design consultancy was set up and since then it was been involved in the creation of new approaches to both design and construction. You can read about the iStream process and lots more besides at gordonmurraydesign. Rocket Man com. If you check out the website you might speculate, as I did, on the relevance of the mermaid motif ‘with a comb and glass in An Interview with her hand‘ and all that Lorelei stuff. It had me wondering – and I had to ask - it originates from the Murray Clan crest. Gordon Murray Gordon Murray is also known as a Bob Dylan uberfan, a red wine connoisseur and a John Aston managed to scoop this exclusive and Hawaiian shirt afi cionado. And now let’s hear illuminating interview for Lowfl ying. what he has to say….

12 Lowfl ying November 2015 This Parmalat-liveried BT 52, designed for the Brabham team’s 1983 season epitomises the purity of design and elegance of simplicity which Murray was able to deliver. Photographic www.latphoto.co.uk Credit: LAT There is a huge difference between a power-to-weight ratio and a weight-to-power ratio Can we begin by talking about the fi rst racing to track that car down again through media took me six months to fi nd employment, but I car you designed, the IGM, which you raced appeals in magazines and TV. Several people ended up with the Brabham Formula One team successfully in 1967 and 1968? It was very Lotus came up with cars which were similar and so although I had an immediate regret that I Seven–esque in appearance – was that because it one looked so close I fl ew out to Cape Town had not got the Lotus job to work with Chunky was seeking to answer the same set of questions? to have a look but it wasn’t the real thing. A (as Chapman was often called – jpa), in the end I raced that car in the A Class sports car friend in South Africa got a lawyer on the case it was possibly a good thing because I probably category for sports cars up to 110 0 cc; I was and it turned out from the paperwork trail that wouldn’t have got into Formula One. racing against a lot of specials, a Lotus Seven at some point the car had been crashed and After Watkins Glen in ’74 where the and a Mallock U2. But in National Racing I written off. I’ve still got all the drawings for fi nished fi rst and second, having was up against imported stuff like Lotus 23s, the chassis so I could build a run-on of chassis started fi rst and second on the grid and set Elfi ns, Porsche 904s and so that was entirely a which actually I’d like to do one day. But I the fastest lap, Chapman walked down the different story… couldn’t redo the engine - I built that myself pit lane to see me. Previously, I’d only had When I built the IGM I made all the and made my own pistons and camshafts and the odd nod from him, but now he shook aluminium parts of the bodywork myself I don’t have the drawings for them any more. my hand and said ‘That’s the way to do it‘. but to save time and money I bought a When you came to the United Kingdom you That night, David Phipps (on behalf of Colin Lotus Seven nose and some wings from wanted to work for Lotus – but that didn’t Chapman) offered me a job and that probably a guy in Durban – he’d taken a mould of happen. How much of a regret has this been happened every year until Chapman died. But somebody’s Seven and was selling the stuff for you? I never took it because by then I was pretty for about fi fteen quid a set. That’s why the It’s a strange story really; I wrote to Colin well established at Brabham and also because car looks like a Seven, but the frame was Chapman about six months before I left South I’m a single minded designer as was Chapman, completely different. It was lighter, much Africa, telling him I’d built my own engine so I don’t think it would have worked - we more triangulated and was also about six and car, had raced it reasonably successfully were both too strong to be in the same team. inches lower at the dashboard. So it was an and so on and he said ‘Come for an interview‘. I am sure the Chapman mantra of ‘Simplify, even lower car than a Seven, much more like He gave me the name of a guy called Brian then add lightness’ infl uenced your work – so a Mallock. When I left South Africa, I turned Luff, who was Lotus’ head of engineering – not does it sadden you that a Veyron weighs 800kg it into a road car – putting on softer springs the Formula One team though, the road car more than a McLaren F1 and even a McLaren and dampers, fi tting a proper windscreen and side. The fi rst full day I had in the UK, I went P1 weighs 250kg more? even wipers. Importing a Lotus Seven in those up for the interview but I hadn’t been in touch Chapman’s words have been a huge infl uence days was very expensive; I built the IGM for with them for three months or so; there was on me and I think the weight of such cars is £200 and sold it for £600. I tried for years now a recession and so I didn’t get a job. It then just ridiculous. It is just so counter-productive

Lowfl ying November 2015 13 The Gordon Murray Interview for a sports car; there is a huge difference that stuff. I’m still following that Chapman drove for us (Brabham) for a short time and he between a power-to-weight ratio and a weight- mantra; if you look at a McLaren F1, which is the was killed in a light aeroplane crash. Pace was to-power ratio. The way that Bugatti develop same footprint as a Boxster, with two people on fantastic, he had oodles of natural ability and a power-to-weight ratio … it’s a thousand board it has the same luggage capacity as a BMW he was very fast, very easy to get on with and horsepower in a two tonne car but what you 3 Series – and it’s got a V12! So you can expect both Bernie and I thought he had the capability never get is the handling, especially transient a similar level of good packaging from the TVR - of being world champion. And there are lots of handling in direction changing. So you can good boot space and easy maintenance. other drivers I saw who I just thought were in the have as much power-to-weight as you like, So are you involved directly in its styling too ? wrong team; it’s not just about having a fast car. but you never get the handling. The current Yes, to design a car properly you need to be in Teams which I run operate with everyone feeling generation of cars like the Porsche 918 – 1,600 charge of everything. I am looking forward to a part of the family. Not all the teams were like kg, the P1 and the LaFerrari at 1,400kg. That, long relationship with TVR. It is quite a unique that and there were probably six to eight drivers for me, isn’t really a sports car. brand actually but you can’t put aside the fact who I looked at across the fence and thought - So the F1 is still the template then? that, in the past, the cars were badly engineered, ‘we could do a lot for you…’ (yes , I did ask who I think it still is actually – you need to think badly put together, fell to pieces and couldn’t but IGM wasn’t going to be drawn - jpa) about the footprint too; the LaFerrari is 2 be serviced. Most of them didn’t handle either. Many designers such as , Ross metres wide and trying to use that on British But that aside … (laughs) they still have a Brawn and Rory Byrne have been attracted by roads is quite impossible. fantastic reputation as a British muscle car. If Maranello’s allure. Were you ever tempted? You have emphasised the importance of you think about the history of such cars, until I’ve had several offers from Ferrari through packaging in design – how will this principle TVR, there hadn’t been anything like it since the years, yes, but I was never really tempted. be demonstrated in the TVR project you are the AC Ace got hijacked by Carroll Shelby and When Bernie took over Brabham we were just working on ? turned into the Cobra. They picked up that a completely dismal Formula One team. Jack I always approach car design exactly the same tradition and ran with it using straight sixes and Brabham had stopped driving, way – apart from light weight, packaging is V8s in very lightweight cars – big bang for the had left and with , the team car design and the fi rst thing you do is to pick buck - and that’s where the new owners of TVR, scored about fourteen championship points - overall dimensions which are suitable for the people like Les Edgar, want to go again. it was just horrible. Bernie fi red everybody else market you are selling in. TVR is predominantly You’ve worked with the greats of Grand Prix and kept me on as chief designer; we started a UK and European brand so the car has to be racing, drivers like Piquet and Senna but is with a completely new piece of paper with the narrow enough and small enough to use on our there a driver who got away; somebody who you BT42 and BT44. I felt like I had a huge part in roads. The other thing you then look at is the would like most to have worked with? rebuilding Brabham and I was very proud of ergonomics, getting in and out, pedal offsets and Yes; someone I did work with for a short time it. I have always loved working with a good then visibility. Everyday usability is important but he got killed, and I think he could have team of people and, as I said just now, I loved and so is cabin stowage, luggage capacity – all been world champion - Carlos Pace. He only the family approach we had. The LaFerrari is two metres wide and trying to use that on British roads is quite impossible.

Inset image: Lotus Seven-esque on the outside, but quite unique under the skin, the IGM Ford was Murray’s fi rst design. He designed all aspects of the car, from engine to exterior, and raced it in the National Sports Car Race Series in South Africa with some success.

14 Lowfl ying November 2015 Gordon Murray signs deal with Les Edgar, Chairman of TVR, to collaborate on the design of a new Cosworth-powered sports car, destined for launch in 2017

I had offers from McLaren, Ferrari and Lotus end up winning those. In today’s Grand Prix but I can’t see anybody doing anything as pure of course and a few other people. I have no world, if you asked me if I had a passion as the Elan. The obvious successor was the regret about not going to Ferrari, not at all. I for winning at Hungary, with a second gear MX5 – as you probably know Mazda bought had total control at Brabham, and the same corner go kart circuit, I certainly wouldn’t… several Elans, took them to Japan and did a tin when I did go to McLaren but I don’t think I Le Mans - you were involved with the De version of it if you like. But over the years it would have got that at Ferrari. I did meet the Cadenet project in 1972? got bigger and flabbier and further away from Old Man though, which was a highlight of That worked really well and we should have the original concept. They are trying to reverse my life; Bernie helicoptered me down just to finished 4th. After 22 hours, we’d passed all that trend with the new one but it is still meet Enzo. I have massive respect for what the works Porsches and Alfas and were sitting 300kg heavier than an Elan and not as pure. they have done and what they are doing, behind the three Matras – but we would never So what should a modern, affordable and particularly with their road cars - they still have caught them. And then Chris Craft crashed usable sports car look like? build the sexiest road cars on the planet. I’m in the rain but we still finished as highest You can rule out Rockets and Atoms if it’s going just not sure my working style would have placed British car and it was the first Cosworth to be affordable and usable - and even Sevens worked out too well there. I wouldn’t place DFV ever to finish at Le Mans. But after that, really as they’re just not practical enough to use on quite as high a pedestal as because of Formula One commitments, I 12 months of the year. A much purer MX5 if but he was up there, certainly. had no time to spare at all until we raced the front engined; but the thing I’ve always wanted There hasn’t been a Grand Prix at Kyalami McLaren F1 GTR in 1995 (which finished 1st 3rd to do (and we are working on one I can’t say since 1993 but we have one in Azerbaijan next 4th and 5th – jpa). I have a regret that I didn’t much about) is a pure small and affordable rear year and I am not sure what that says about the do more at Le Mans but if you are going to do mid-engine car. So if you took a Lotus Elise and sport. What is your take on the current state of Formula One properly then it’s 110 % - in my changed it so you could actually use it, so you Formula One? first eleven years in Formula One, I had three could get in and out easier and it didn’t leak, I think it’s in a mess. I think the technical weeks’ holiday. You do Formula One and it’s something like that is very close to my heart. regulations are too constrictive and too false your life - in those days anyway. Nowadays they The press loved the Light Car Company Rocket and I think they have forgotten that it’s a have teams of 600 people. When you’ve only but only 50 people bought one. Was it a prophet drivers’ championship. The places it goes? got one designer, there’s no room for personal without honour? It just follows the money, full stop. There life, let alone Le Mans. But I’d love to go back We wanted to make the lightest road legal car so is no room for nostalgia any more. When there, it is a fantastic challenge, much bigger the only way to do that was with a bike engine. I started I was 26 and I had a passion and than Formula One racing, and maybe we’ll have But to do this meant that everything on the car a target to win on what I considered to be an opportunity with TVR. was bespoke which made it hugely expensive - the toughest circuits. The original 5½ mile Two of your favourite road cars are the Renault you don’t make money on cars like that so there Interlagos, the Nürburgring, Monaco and 4 and the Lotus Elan – do they have any was no point in carrying on really. Chris Craft Spa-Francorchamps - those were the circuits spiritual successors? (co founder of the Light Car Company) still gets I considered to be the biggest challenge from The Renault 4 already has one; that’s the requests to build them and is able to produce a car/driver/designer combination and I did Renault Kangoo and I’ve got three of them, the odd one. I have one and I use it a lot; I love

Lowflying November 2015 15 The Gordon Murray Interview it! I ‘ve driven it on track days, I drive it to work, I even drove it to the South of France. I just use it I wouldn’t place Enzo Ferrari on quite as high a like a normal car - it’s actually very comfortable. What would Colin Chapman think about the pedestal as Colin Chapman but he was up there fact that nearly sixty years on, the Seven is still in production? It’s fascinating because the Seven is just such a classic layout, package and shape; everything just works. But I hate the newer ones with roll bars – I love the purity of the original S1, 2 and 3. It is such a pure, well thought out design and trying to do a modern Seven just doesn’t work – even Chapman failed with the S4. You can’t update it – it’s such a classic shape and classic cars go on forever. When we did the Rocket, Chris tried to do a modern looking Seven and I just said ‘forget it’ because nobody else has succeeded and I don’t think anybody ever will; why don’t we just do something completely different?’ The Rocket is a central seater of course so I just picked all my favourite aspects of Fifties and Sixties Formula One cars - Vanwall and so on – and I drew the body to look like a retro car rather than trying to beat the Seven. I can’t fit in a Seven but I did drive a 620R – I had to take the seat out to fit in. I’m six foot four unfortunately… The best way forward for me is to build the run-on of the IGM, as I said earlier, because that cockpit was built for me anyway. And that car was way under 500kg… The Brabham BT 52 is on my shortlist of the most beautiful Grand Prix cars and it looks much more than the form defined by function aesthetic. How consciously did you style that car? What I’ve always done with a Formula One car is where there is a piece of the car that wasn’t specifically for aero reasons, I just made them look good. I’m quite unusual for an engineer because I started doing art - I love styling and I’ve led the styling on all my cars apart from the Mercedes SLR McLaren. Good styling is good for the sponsors, because people like to photograph the car and it’s good for the fans. How much synergy was there between you and Peter Stevens (who integrated the Parmalat livery into the BT52 arrow shape)? Peter and I had been friends for a long time Can it really be twenty years ago? The five McLaren F1 GTRs that finished the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans were and in fact when I did the F1 I asked Peter if reunited on track in may this year to pay tribute to a record-breaking victory. he had a student to do clay modelling and those lovely illustrations which make chrome I have interviewed a lot of people for formality too - ‘Formula One’, never ‘F1‘ look like chrome. I knew what I wanted the Lowflying over the years and I have enjoyed (except in relation to the F1 road car) and F1 to look like and I had a beer with Peter and doing every single one because everybody has ‘Spa-Francorchamps‘, not the commonly asked him to recommend an RCA student. He a story to tell. Usually the process involves abbreviated ‘Spa’. The whole process took said ‘I’d like to do that job‘ so I employed him a talk of up to 90 minutes, which I record, half the time of a normal interview but to do all the (laughs) ‘twiddly bits’. then transcribe and then spend a lot of time produced twice the material. I doubt that I You have the choice of one car and one road to editing into readable prose. I have to do this will interview a more impressive man. And drive it on – where’s the road and what’s the car? because most of us don’t talk as we write; we the fact that he has applied Colin Chapman’s The car would be a Series 3 or Series 4 Elan fixed change subject half way through an answer, principles to an almost unimprovable CV head, and it would be in Torridon probably we lose our way, we fall into non-sequiturs makes it a privilege to interview somebody who (NW Scotland, where IGM has a home –jpa) and we blunder up verbal culs de sac. But has claimed for himself that rare territory where And when you get back from the drive and this interview wasn’t like that because what art meets design. you’re relaxing with a glass of red, what’s the you have just read is almost exactly what My thanks are due to Steve Carter (who soundtrack – Dylan? Gordon Murray said. Each question would helped me make contact with IGM), Pam (Laughs, long pause) Probably not after a blast be answered immediately, thoroughly Reddings at Gordon Murray Design (who in a car actually. Dylan, yes, he’s usually above and logically in ready-made sentences arranged our talk), EVO Magazine for use of anything else but probably something by my delivered in a quiet, intense voice with just an image and of course to Gordon Murray old mate George Harrison. a hint of a South African accent. There’s a himself. LF

16 Lowflying November 2015