The opening of the 79th Members’ Meeting (79MM), which took place over the weekend of 9th and 10th April at Goodwood, saw the reveal of the new Gordon Murray Automotive T.33 on the Pit Lane Lawn, following the cars official unveiling at the end of January.
Both Gordon Murray and the Duke of Richmond were there to introduce the company, the car and to pull the covers off for the car’s global reveal, watched by the many car enthusiasts attending the Members’ Meeting.
This is Gordon Murray Automotive’s second newly developed model, with the T.33 now joining the T.50 and T.50s Niki Lauda in the company’s model line-up. The all-new T.33 is somewhat reminiscent of those pretty sportscars from the 1960s, with beautifully created curves and tapering lines and a more traditional cab-rearward silhouette than the T.50, which was also on display at the meeting and used as the course pace car during the F1 and Porsche Group C demonstrations.
The T.33 is a two-seater, mid-engined car that has been designed and engineered without compromise, giving the driver outstanding performance, comfort, superb on-road driving experience as well as everyday usability. The engine is a specially reconfigured version of the T.50 3.9-litre V12, co-designed with Cosworth, while the body is built around a newly developed carbon and aluminium superlight architecture, weighing in at under 1100kg. As with the T.50, production of the T.33 is limited to just 100 cars.
Gordon Murray commented:
“With the T.33, our second all-new car, we gave ourselves a very clear brief: to create another timeless design. It has been designed and engineered to the same exacting standards as our T.50, with the same emphasis on driver focus, performance, lightweight and superlative, pure design, but the outcome is a very different motor car. This is a car where comfort, effortless performance and day to day usability are even more front and centre in its character.”
Murray’s first car, the T.50 was unveiled in August 2020, with a limited production run of just 100 cars, and engineered to be the most driver-centric supercar ever built, weighing just 986kg and powered by a 3.9-litre V12 Cosworth GMA engine, which is the world’s lightest, highest-revving most power dense naturally-aspirated road car engine.
The car also has the most advanced and effective aerodynamics ever seen on a road car, in part thanks to the innovative and unique rear-mounted fan, which was originally seen on Murray’s Brabham BT46 in the 1978 Formula 1 season at the Swedish Grand Prix, powered by a 3.0-litre (2,995 cc) Alfa Romeo engine. The team being owned by Bernie Ecclestone at the time. The car generated an immense amount of downforce as a result of the fan which extracted air from beneath the car. The car only raced once in the end, despite the FIA ruling that it could be used for the rest of the season.
At the T.50 launch in 2020, Murray said:
“From the first touch of the titanium throttle pedal to the V12 screaming at 12,100rpm, the driver experience will surpass any supercar ever built. No other road car can deliver the package of power, instant responsiveness and driver feedback in such a direct and focused way while remaining comfortable, refined and usable every day.
“Just 100 customers will share my vision, a car created to improve on the F1 formula in every conceivable way. With 30 years of technological and systems advancement, now, the time is right to design the greatest analogue driver’s car. I believe no other company could deliver what we will bring to market in 2022, producing this British supercar will be my proudest moment.”
Author Bio:
Simon Burrell is Editor of Our Man Behind The Wheel, a professional photographer and former saloon car racing driver.
Photographs by Gary Harman
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