Yahoo Autos The Autoweek Dispatch: The Real Story Behind the Engine in Gordon Murray's New Supercar
Besides getting the lowdown on the engine in Gordon Murray’s new supercar straight from the man himself, we've learned that Jeep is launching a couple plug-in hybrids and Roger Penske and Acura are parting ways. Here’s what’s happening in the car world:
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“For a team to make a protest is quite normal. Of course, it is always better to make a protest at the beginning of the weekend instead of afterwards. But in case of doubt, you always have to protest. Then, it is about the interpretation of the regulations. The teams that have interpreted it the best have benefited the most, but it is very important to know where the limit is.”
—FIA president Jean Todt commenting on the Renault F1 team protesting the Racing Point team’s cars, alleging they are a bit too much like Mercedes’ mighty F1 cars. Todt says the practice of copying other teams has been in Formula 1 for decades and that there isn’t a team in the paddock that hasn’t lifted something from a rival. Renault meanwhile says it will protest Racing Point’s cars every race if necessary. Good stuff!
FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
If anyone other than Gordon Murray tried to produce a new and improved version of the McLaren F1 they’d be rightly mocked. The original still tops the list of superlative supercars nearly three decades after it was launched and values have risen to the unobtainium level of an eight-figure buy-in. Yet after Autoweek spoke to Murray about the forthcoming T.50 it’s hard not to believe it really is going to be the second coming, with a circa-$3 million price tag that looks pretty reasonable compared to a ratty F1.
We’ll have to wait until next month for images and all the technical details—with highlights including a 2,160-pound weight, 48-volt active aerodynamics and a central driving position flanked by two passenger seats. But Murray was happy to talk to Autoweek in detail about the new car’s astonishing V12 engine. Our man in Europe, Mike Duff, spoke to Murray. Duff filed the following:
Murray gave famous British motorsport company Cosworth what seemed like an impossible brief. The new motor had to make the same power as the Paul Rosche-designed “S70/2” 6.0-liter BMW V12 from the F1 but be substantially lighter and capable of revving to a motorcycle-like 12,000 rpm. Cosworth hit every target: The engine makes 650 hp, reaches its limiter at 12,100 rpm (thanks to gear-driven valve gear and using titanium for valves and conrods) and weighs just 392 pounds, 132 pounds less than the S70. It’s tiny, too—displacing just 3.9 liters and with the center of its crank just 3.3 inches above its sump.
Cosworth told Murray it could create one engine map capable of meeting all of his targets, but he has insisted on two. “Not everyone is going to want 12,000 rpm every day,” Murray tells us, “not if they are taking the kids to school or popping down to the shops. So I’ve asked for one mode that runs out at ‘Ferrari revs’—9,500 rpm—and shuffles the torque downwards. … It makes 71% of its maximum (332 lb-ft) at 2,500 rpm, a number I find difficult to believe.”
The engine’s response was equally important to Murray, the McLaren’s ability to add revs being one of its most impressive characteristics. “I said they had to do better than the F1, which was about 10,000 revs a second in neutral,” he says. “I got an email back in February last year saying, ‘We think we’ve bettered your target on response: 28,400 revs a second!’ Even after all my years in the industry I struggled to get my head around that one.”
That means it will be able to rev from idle to redline in just one-third of a second—a similar response rate to a naturally aspirated V10 Formula 1 engine.
Yet Murray fears the T.50’s engine—and the larger capacity and slightly less revvy V12 Cosworth is making for the Aston Martin Valkyrie—will mark the end of an era. “Cosworth are so far ahead of Ferrari and other people on internal combustion now, but that’s because everyone is concentrating on hybrids and EVs,” he tells us.
If this is the high watermark of road-going internal combustion, we figure it’s not a bad place to end.
