Exclusive: Watch Dario Franchitti reveal Gordon Murray’s T.33 Spider

Five days before the car’s official U.S. debut at The Quail on August 18, guests at a Hagerty Garage + Social event in Van Nuys, California, were treated to an exclusive preview of the Gordon Murray Automotive (GMA) T.33 Spider.

GMA CEO Phillip Lee, and four-time Indy Car champion and three-time Indy 50o winner Dario Franchitti, joined Hagerty Media’s Larry Webster to give the audience a sneak peek behind the scenes of the company and a detailed run-down of its second supercar.

GMA was only formed in 2017, with Lee and Franchitti coming on board two years later as the awesome T.50 “fan car” was beginning to come together. GMA has now delivered its first T.50 to a customer in the U.S. and, like all Murray’s cars, no more than 100 will be made.

While the T.50 and its track-only S derivative are, arguably, Murray’s re-imagining of his legendary McLaren F1, the T.33 has been designed to be more of a daily driver—albeit with a V-12 engine that revs to 11,000.

During the reveal Franchitti described how he was originally recruited by Murray as an ambassador for 15 days a year and soon ended up working three days a week developing the T.50 and T.33.

Murray seeks nothing else except “driving perfection,” says Franchitti. It’s “the feeling of driving an older car but in a modern car,” he explains. The T.33’s styling is also heavily influenced by Murray’s love of the clean, undiluted lines of 1960s sports and racing cars. “The boss hates wings, he likes the shape of a ’60s car and you can see the influences,” adds Franchitti.

The T.33 Spider was designed from the outset as a convertible and as a result is only 40 pounds heavier than the coupe. It features the same Cosworth V-12 engine as the T.50, in a slightly milder state of tune, and an XTrac six-speed manual transmission. The chassis is unique, however, and uses Murray’s i-Stream technology with an aluminum skeleton and boned carbon-fiber panels.

Of course, the T.33 is ridiculously fast; but “it’s not about lap times,” says Franchitti. “To me, the dream is blasting through one of the canyon roads or a glen in Scotland.”

“We want people to use them,” adds Lee, who says that just a “handful” of cars are still available.

To find out more about the T.33 and Gordon Murray Automotive’s future plans, check out the video of the event.

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