An instruction for all of you readers, before you start reading, watch this video carefully- https://shorturl.at/nk8c9
Did you? Great! Let's begin!
When people ask me what I want in my dream car, they don’t understand my answer, and ridicule me for it. “Oh, Hans, why would you want little to no sound insulation, it’s can be so annoying, you should want a quiet cabin!” “Oh Hans, why would you want to drive a car with a manual gearbox in India? It’s so annoying!” “Oh Hans, why would you want a manual gearbox with a heavy clutch and a light flywheel, which is difficult to use in stop-and-go traffic and in parking, will give you an ache in the left leg, and will stall the car even if you breathe on the clutch, a heavy shifter, and naturally aspirated engine that you have to rev out to extract all the power from it? Wouldn’t you want a turbo-petrol or a diesel? It will have better fuel economy and good low-end torque! You will be able to pick it up in second, third, and fourth gear!” “Why do you want to rev the engine? It’s so loud and it will ruin the engine! And burn more fuel! You should be a responsible young man and prioritize fuel economy and safety!” ”Oh Hans! A sports car must not be a good choice! You deserve better! You deserve an SUV that’s comfortable and safe and does not ruin your back! And what’s your obsession with going fast around corners? Do you want to crash and die? I bet you might be smiling like an idiot as you are crashing down the hilly road! Just cruise on a straight line and be happy, and let the engine cruise at 1000 rpm and chill and get good fuel economy!” ”What’s your obsession with how the engine sounds and mechanical noises? Don’t you want silence?” ”Have fun when your sports car is scraping everywhere because it has no ground clearance!” “Oh Hans! You need to grow up, driving experience is not as important as you think, who cares about steering feel, grip, and handling, and WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU WANT TO DRIVE A CAR HARD AROUND CORNERS?!” ”What’s your obsession with light-weighting a car?” ”Rear-wheel-drive? Isn’t that dangerous? Won’t you spin out and crash?”
Okay, ENOUGH! Now, once you are done making fun of me, with your not-so-accurate advice, let me explain. There is a car that arrived quite recently, called the Gordon Murray T.50. This car, isn’t just any car. And not because it costs a whopping $3.2 million and only a limited number will be produced. It’s because it aligns perfectly with what I want from a car, and it is one of the best driving experiences, ever, in history. Period. That is not a title that is easily earned. And the man behind it, is even cooler. The British engineer Gordon Murray, has designed ACTUAL race cars, and he designed the Mclaren F1, the car that held the worlds fastest production car record before the Bugatti Veyron. And this guy is so cool, that he COMPLETELY redesigned the F1, because he was not happy with it! And that resulted in the Gordon Murray T.50. Now that’s a man who believes in doing a great job, no matter the cost. The engine sounds so good, that you will not know how to react to it, the gear-shift is perfect, the gates are well-defined and you love using the gearbox for no reason and constantly shifting through gears is fun, and the highlight, is the grace and poise with which it goes around corners, as it dances like a ballerina, and the amount of texture the steering gives you. Because of the manual gearbox solely designed for good shifting feel, and the lighter flywheel, which is an understatement, because it has basically ZERO FLYWHEEL WEIGHT (which is why the revs rise and fall extremely quickly, something you might not see in a conventional car, even in a sports car it’s a rare sight), the throttle response is immediate, which makes it an even more involving experience. What that car is able to do, you might never get it in a modern car. Also, it is light, unlike modern cars, that are too heavy, and take the agility away from cars. It just weighs a whopping 987 kg! And it makes 654 horsepower! That’s probably one of the highest power-to-weight ratios out there! That thing is properly fast! And it does not need turbochargers as inhalers (because it does not have asthma) and electric motors that add weight, and automatic gearboxes that take away from the experience. It proves that modern cars can be light, and give an enjoyable driving experience. The engine is a 3.9 L naturally aspirated V-12, so it sounds like heaven, and it is linear, and extremely responsive, and it howls like a 90s Formula-1 racecar to it's UNBELIEVABLE 12,000 RPM redline. It has the mechanical noises and immediate throttle response that you might only get in an old sports car, and that we thought was lost. The Gordon Murray T50 isn’t about 0-100 km/h acceleration times, lap times, numbers, comfort, or daily-drivability, or anything practical or logical (or anything that excites spec-sheet nerds and keyboard warriors). Because to us enthusiasts, those things don’t matter! It’s all about the driving experience, and it only focuses on that. The Gordon Murray focuses on simplicity, lightness, and a raw, driving experience that will make you emotional. It represents everything we like about old cars, everything we like about driving, why we love driving, and what is getting lost in the modern era. Cars like the Gordon Murray T.50 are getting harder and harder to find, and rarer by the moment. In the pursuit of meeting unreasonably strict emission regulations, comfort, daily-drivability, and safety needs, sports cars with manual gearboxes, great driver engagement, and character and charm, and great-sounding internal combustion engines are dying and might leave us. I know that I must be optimistic for the future, but I can’t help but get a bit emotional because sports cars like these might die. It is getting harder and harder for them to meet regulations, and apart from the few, people aren’t buying them in huge enough volumes. As stricter norms ring the death knell for cars as special as this, the Gordon Murray T50 might just be, the last of its kind. So, learn from James Bond, and enjoy it, while it lasts.
Edit: The things I will do for this car, are a bit on the illegal side and gruesome so I am not mentioning them here. (And you can’t arrest me, because I haven’t done them yet;) And if you still think I am an idiot for liking this car, then watch the video I have put(the car in the video is the Gordon Murray T50, if you haven't figured that out), and then decide for yourself, if it’s peak driving experience or not.
And speaking of daily-able, it is well-engineered. If you are still interested in reading further, the driver’s seat is in the center, like a Formula-1 car, so no separate position for left-hand drive or right-hand drive, and you have two seats at the corners, so technically, you can have 2 more people sit with not-bad comfort, it has a touchscreen infotainment with Apple Carplay, and it is not that taxing, so it can be used as a GT (Grand Tourer) for long road trips, and it can cruise comfortably on the highway in sixth gear. Also, since it’s light, and has a stiff chassis, you don’t need to use extremely firm suspension and make it unbearable on the road. It is clearly designed to be used on the road, and drive really well on British backroads, that are long, sharp-ish, and bumpy. So, it has a plush ride as well, for a sports car. So, your passenger doesn’t complain as you drive like a maniac on a bumpy backroad, and they feel like they are in a Rolls-Royce. No seriously, that’s how well the car is engineered. Enough nerding out, because I want this post to be easy to understand.
