Automotive

The first sketches of the legendary McLaren F1 were put to paper in September of 1988, though it’s likely the earliest seeds of the car were planted in Gordon Murray’s brain long before. That car was perhaps the most ambitious performance car ever created, and its has never been replicated or surpassed. Until now. Murray is back with a brand new car, and if he wasn’t fucking around before, he definitely isn’t now. His new project, the GMA T.50, isn’t just an improvement on the old Macca, this is a ground-up rethink of the whole concept aimed at creating a new hypercar G.O.A.T. Every single component was designed to improve on its predecessor. As a result, the T.50 is a rolling superlative. It has almost as much power as McLaren’s vaunted 720S, but weighs a full 1,000 pounds less. It has a naturally-aspirated Cosworth-built 4-liter V12 that revs to 12,100 rpm, and it can jump from idle to redline in just three tenths of a second. Advertisement The T.50 weighs 160 pounds …

Continue Reading about The Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 Is The Only Hypercar That Matters

Electric propulsion is the future! Lots of automotive enthusiasts are being real downers about that fact, but with Autopia 2099 we’re trying to get the world to be a little more optimistic about it. Electric hot rodding is alive and well, modern EVs are better than ever, and there’s even cooler stuff on the horizon. So let’s get together and have a good electrified time in LA this December. And we want you to get involved, too! Advertisement [ Disclaimer : I am one of the co-founders of Autopia 2099. I will directly materially benefit if you buy a ticket or some merch. I am absolutely biased in favor of this show continuing to be a roaring success. It’s important to me, Autopia 2099, and Jalopnik that you know this information.] Jalopnik is partnering with the event organizers (myself included) to put together a really cool contest to honor three lucky readers and their totally awesome electron-powered cars. If you’re in the area, or you can make …

Continue Reading about We’re Doing A Reader Contest For Autopia 2099 And Only Masters Of High Voltage Will Win

VW likes talking about one thing: switching to new, flashy EVs. What it doesn’t like talking about (other than the reason why it is switching to EVs) is what’s going on with its conventional cars. All that and more in The Morning Shift for October 20, 2021. Advertisement 1st Gear: Behind All The EV News, Big Production Cuts At VW VW loves to hype its EV and tech developments ( here’s a new missive from boss Herbert Diess ), but what is somewhat less publicized is what’s going on with its gas-burning models. They are ... in cut mode, as Reuters reports: Volkswagen has produced just 300,000 cars at its main Wolfsburg plant so far this year, a company source with knowledge of the matter said, the lowest figure since 1958 and far behind its average output before the pandemic. The plant, which makes cars from the Golf, Tiguan, and Seat brands among others, produced an average of 780,000 vehicles per year in the past decade and the company said in …

Continue Reading about Something’s Going On At VW

The GMA T.50 is one of the most exciting cars in the world right now. It’s got an incredible Cosworth engine, a striking design, and it marks Gordon Murray’s return to the center-seated sports car concept that brought us the McLaren F1. As it turns out, it also sounds fantastic . Advertisement This past weekend marked the 78th Goodwood Member’s Meeting , and the first time we’ve been able to hear the full range of the T.50's Cosworth V12. We previously heard a limited, test tune of the engine , but now the 11,500 RPM genie has officially left the bottle. Goodwood posted video of the car’s full run on YouTube , and you have my official permission to open it in a second tab behind whatever spreadsheet you’re working on: That sound . The T.50 has a relatively tiny displacement, compared to the number of cylinders it keeps hidden away under its rear cowl, which is what permits the car’s five-digit redline. Call it the sound of a classic F1 car, a …

Continue Reading about Hear The Gordon Murray T.50 Wail Its Way Around Goodwood

“You can tell when a car is going to be good. It just feels so good already,” says professor Gordon Murray upon stepping out of the GMA T.50 prototype after a few sighting laps at the Dunsfold Top Gear test track. These are still very early days for the prototype, as it is clearly about as far as you can get from a finished product, and the extremely early engine is still limited to only the first 3,000 revs of its supposed 12,100 rpm limit. Advertisement There is a lot of work yet to be done before the 100 “production” There are obvious connections between Murray’s legendary McLaren F1 and this new T.50, but he promises that it’s not just a 10 percent better F1. The overall shape and the three-wide arrowhead seating are clearly signatures of the F1 carried over for this new car, but that’s pretty much where the similarities end. Every piece of this car is bespoke to this car, not carried over or sourced from anywhere else. Some janky old BMW engine wouldn’t …

Continue Reading about The Only Hypercar That Matters Is Finally A Running And Driving Prototype