Gordon Murray Automotive’s T.50 and the upcoming T.33 that Dario Franchitti just took for a spin aren’t just cars; they’re choirs.
Whether car lovers know it or not, every one of us is a music aficionado. A gearhead who can’t carry a tune in a bucket can clock a small block Chevy at a hundred paces. Every fan has their favorite song, too: the battle screech of a supercharger at speed, downshifting at just the right rev count and hearing the octave drop. Even two-wheel heretics appreciate the grumble of a chopped Harley or a Kawasaki wail.
It may just be that the finest sound in the history of music via internal combustion is a perfectly tuned V12.
Meet George and James. These gentlemen are mule cars. That is, they’re on-road prototypes for planned future models, usually boasting similar working parts but often built on the skeleton of another car. George was the mule for Gordon Murray Automotive’s phenomenal T.50 hypercar. Built under COVID lockdown, George boasted the same 3.9L V12 as the T.50, plus identical fuel system, heat management, and other internals, all bolted onto the body of an Ultima kit car.
Then came James. As George to the T.50, James to the upcoming T.33.
As Dario Franchitti points out in the video, most manufacturers don’t put their mule cars on YouTube or give them to expert driver/commentators to assess. Gordon Murray Automotive is not most manufacturers. Ever since Murray announced the T.50 as the logical successor to the McLaren F1 in 2020, the company has kept its process open, airing a YouTube series covering the entire production of the T.50. James is our first look at the T.33 in the wild.
In terms of specs, the T.33 is slightly heavier than the T.50, and at 615 hp, it’s a semitone down from the T.50’s 675. It does bring more torque at the low end, however, making it, to judge by the video, beautifully responsive.
And, of course, it knows how to sing.