Gordon Murray’s T.50 supercar will be sold through Canepa in California
Gordon Murray Automotive has named California’s Canepa Group as the sole North American representative for the upcoming T.50, which Murray says will be the lightest, most driver-focused supercar ever built. Limited to just 100 examples, the 2160-pound, 650-horsepower T.50 is generally considered to be the conceptual heir to the Murray-designed McLaren F1, which sits high atop the enthusiast hierarchy of great automobiles.
“Cars are meant to be driven, and this may be one of the most exciting road cars ever designed,” Bruce Canepa says. “I am both honored and excited to be a part of this amazing project.” Canepa’s firm in northern California is one of the world’s preeminent restoration shops, and Canepa himself is a respected collector and vintage racer.
The Canepa Group will be the official importer for the new Murray car and be responsible for all aspects of customer service, including sales, repairs, maintenance, and warranty work. GMA says the Canepa team has been involved as consultants on the T.50 project from its earliest stages.
Based in Scotts Valley, California, near the affluent tech lords of the Silicon Valley and the performance enthusiasts who frequent the Laguna Seca race track, Canepa is highly respected in the collector car world and has extensive experience selling cars to customers with deep pockets and high expectations.
Those expectations should be met by the T.50, which will be powered by a 3.9-liter V-12 designed specifically for the car by Cosworth. It has an otherworldly redline of 12,100 rpm, the highest revving engine ever for a road car, except perhaps for the Chrysler Turbine car. Interestingly for a uber-tech car that will feature the first real-world application of fan-driven, vacuum enhanced downforce, the T.50 will have a conventional six-speed manual transmission, not the paddle-shifted dual-clutch manumatics that have proliferated in the supercar world.
The use of a conventional stick shift, however, fits Gordon Murray’s personal design brief for the T.50. “We expect this to be the last and the greatest ‘analogue’ supercar ever built.”
Just 106 examples (including prototypes and racers) of the F1 were built in the 1990s, and today they are among the most desired cars in the world. If you’d like to own its spiritual successor, Canepa’s your spot.
