5 Things We Know About Gordon Murray’s T25

Gordon Murray T25
Click for large image

Gordon Murray T25
Click for large image

How many of you remember Gordon Murray’s announcement a year ago back in July 2007 about his upcoming T25 or Type 25 city car? He promised that the car will be revolutionary up to the point that according to him verbatim, “you won’t get in it, sit in it or put luggage in it like a normal car!”

Gordon Murray design is celebrating the T25 project’s mid-point milestone, that is 12 months of work completed out of the 24 month workcycle, with a few teasers on what the T25 is really all about. As you can see from the images above, the new T25 is TINY! It’s even smaller than the Smart fortwo in terms of footprint. Here’s what we can gather from the images, if the representation is accurate:

  • It’s really tiny – Looking at the images it appears that the wheelbase of the T25 is about 5/6 the length of the Smart fortwo which translates to an approximately 1510mm long wheelbase. Overall length should be about 2080mm, or just under 7 feet.
  • It’s a CAFE buster – Something with such a small footprint (CAFE calculates emissions requirements based on wheelbase and width) will likely need a tiny engine with minimal emissions, this should help it score really high on the US CAFE standards.
  • It will be a single seater(?) – With that short wheelbase and a width of about only a third of a Jaguar S-Type’s length (refer to parking photo above), which should be just above 1.5 meters wide (under 5 feet wide), it’s very likely that it won’t be able to fit anything more than a single person and minimal luggage comfortably. However the sketches below show that the driver sits slightly to the right in a presumably right hand drive configuration – what’s on the left could be either a passenger seat or just luggage space.
  • It’s got 4 wheels at least, with 2 driven at the rear – Well, this is because the images and sketches say so, although the front wheels seem to be open wheeled in the teaser images, which is not reflected in the sketches. The sketches after the jump also show a rear engined, rear wheel drive configuration as the door to the passenger cabin is too far forward for a front engine..
  • It will be public in 2009– SInce it’s a two year project and Gordon Murray Design is already half way through it, we’ll know more about it in about 12 months more, so keep July 2009 free!

Murray also says that the way the T25 will be built will also be a complete rethink on the way cars are manufactured and will revolutionise automobile production, perhaps in a way bigger than what the Toyota TPS system has done for car manufacturing.

I have reason to believe that he isn’t just talking marketing bull, he is the man behind the McLaren F1 after all! His team – Gordon Murray Designs – now has a force of 29 with 440 collective years of working in the auto industry and more than 1850 man years of co-working experience. GMD is funded by US-based Mohr Davidow Ventures and the UK based Caparo Group.

Gordon Murray Designs won’t be building and selling the T25 themselves. Like it’s namesake it will be a design and engineering company and will profit from the Intellectual Property rights of licensing the T25 to manufacturers who want to build it.

Look after the jump for some sketches of the new T25.

Gordon Murray T25

Gordon Murray T25

Gordon Murray T25

Gordon Murray T25

Gordon Murray T25

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Paul Tan

After dabbling for years in the IT industry, Paul Tan initially began this site as a general blog covering various topics of personal interest. With an increasing number of readers paying rapt attention to the motoring stories, one thing led to another and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

Comments

  • Capt Shopalot (Member) on Jul 07, 2008 at 7:40 am

    That’s really tiny.
    Like ladybird on the road

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  • Hikaru (Member) on Jul 07, 2008 at 8:08 am

    I have every confidence in Gordon Murray that he will be able to achieve what he set out to do. In will be definately interesting and a case study for the future in how he redesign autocars as we know it.

    However, it being such a small car, its safety protection will be limited. I hope Murray has tackled it and have come up with an acceptable solution.

    Good job!

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  • King Samurai (Member) on Jul 07, 2008 at 8:11 am

    This is a bike with roof & doors…

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  • milanista (Member) on Jul 07, 2008 at 10:02 am

    this idea already manufactured 50 years ago in form of Peel P50

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  • jolly_idiot (Member) on Jul 07, 2008 at 10:24 am

    This is extremely tiny. Wonder will it got roll over by a truck just like a bug?

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  • Roti Naan (Member) on Jul 07, 2008 at 11:09 am

    Jolly idiot,

    If the car does rolled over, I reakon that the light weight car will be easily rolled back and ready to hit the road again……

    the question is, if the car is so light, will people steal it? Just have 2 to 3 person and lift the car on a lorry….the vanish!!! It’s similar to the method where ppl in Malaysia stealing motorbikes.

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  • bolo (Member) on Jul 07, 2008 at 2:42 pm

    Gordon Murray’s creation is always interesting and brilliant. I can’t wait for this to be unveiled. I suspect the sketches shown here could be decoys, the final product may be a pumped up version of the Rocket with central seating and saddle boot spaces.

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  • JULIANLEE2 (Member) on Jul 07, 2008 at 2:56 pm

    UNFORTUNATELY ITS NO MCLAREN F1

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  • osh_kosh (Member) on Jul 07, 2008 at 4:57 pm

    it really tiny… the problem with really small car is that it make me feel unsafe, same as SmartForTwo, it create the feeling that i’ll be squash by a lorry one day… i know most probably i’ll be just fine, i’ve watch SmartForTwo crash test but still, the ‘fear-factor’ is there.. it’s personal i guess…

    btw, imagine all this ‘little bugs’ moving around in KL… it really can at least solve some of the traffic congestion… just pray that u’ll not trap in the ‘banjir kilat, might got ‘wash’ away hehehehe :)

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  • dcwhz83 (Member) on Jul 07, 2008 at 5:05 pm

    to be totally revolutionary, i hope to see a car with next level of safety, emission, comfort and design as well of course…

    to be this tiny, it only makes sense if we can put it on the track instead of on the road… imagine everyone drives to a 20-30 storey car park complex outside key locations outside the city… and hop into one of these cars run on a track or guidance system… without manual throttle control or distance control (by having sonar based detection in the front to control speed)…

    there u have it… 0% accidents, >90% reduction in jams >90% reduction in emission… if each of us saves 1 hr everyday in jam in KL… 2 million ppl… we save 2 million production hrs each day to stimulate the economy…

    of course it must be huge investments, and roads still need to exist as we cant transform overnight… lorries and transportation industry need to go on as usual… but this could be the difference… difference between personal transportation VS commercial transportation…

    why everyone wanna buy a sedan??? because we want a boot to store our luggage… but why drive it 7 days a week… when 5 days a week u dun use the boot? we only need to transport our own self in the city to work on weekdays… no need to waste resources like fuel… so an electric car that fits only 1 ppl in the city area makes sense…

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  • dcwhz83 (Member) on Jul 07, 2008 at 5:11 pm

    i know some of u guys might think we shd take bus or trams or LRT instead… but we love cars, dont we? next generation of cars… :)
    its just an idea…

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  • mokkf82 (Member) on Jul 07, 2008 at 6:32 pm

    Great! substitute a normal kap chai with the advantages of roof top. So not a bad ideal after all. It’s great ideal

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  • mystvearn (Member) on Jul 07, 2008 at 8:05 pm

    The only way he could make the car smaller is by making it taller. Change the sitting position, like to a high stool sitting position, then you can reduce seat space, reduce leg room.
    I don’t think there is anything smaller than the peel P50

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  • mzfnd (Member) on Jul 07, 2008 at 9:10 pm

    Overtaking an 18 wheeler in one will be a scary experience. But then again, such a tiny car shouldn’t be allowed on highways.

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  • azrai (Member) on Jul 08, 2008 at 6:42 am

    Smart for one.

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  • L15a (Member) on Jul 08, 2008 at 9:48 am

    yeahhh…can put it in your pocket…

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