In addition to being an extremely talented automotive engineer, Gordon Murray owns an impressive collection of cars and motorcycles. Rather than collecting the latest supercars, his tastes run toward classic vehicles from the 1960s. In this video, he showcases five favorites from the bunch.
He kicks things off with a Lotus Elite. Murray highlights that this is the first road car with a fiberglass monocoque. He compares it to his work on the McLaren F1, which has a carbon-fiber monocoque.
Next, he shows off a quite rare De Tomaso Vallelunga. This was the first production car from the brand. Unlike the more famous, V8-powered Mangusta and Pantera, it used a mid-mounted, Ford-sourced four-cylinder.
Murray highlights his recently acquired Lancia Appia with a body by Zagato. This one is even more special because it has an aluminum, competition-spec body, rather than the standard steel exterior.
Murray also owns an Abarth 1000 GT with a twin-cam engine that holds the top speed record for 1.0-liter cars at the Bonneville salt flats. It can hit nearly 122 miles per hour (196 kilometers per hour).
He saves the best for last by showcasing a unique Alfa Romeo 1600 Junior Zagato. Murray worked with the company Alfaholics to apply its upgrades for the GTA-R to this wedge-shaped vehicle. Murray didn't fit into the car, so the work included moving the seat mounting point backward and lowering the floor pan by five inches. He also requested tweaks to the coupe's appearance by relocating the fuel filler and replacing the door handles with ones from a Ferrari Dino.
Murray's company Gordon Murray Automotive has two models that are close to starting deliveries to customers. Testing of the fan-assisted, V12-powered T.50 is nearly done, and the automaker plans to build 100 of them, in addition to 25 track-only variants. It intends to introduce the slightly less expensive T.33 in 2024. Two electric SUVs are reportedly coming from the brand, but there are few details available about them at this time.
