sarcastic, right? t.50 is cost no object. wanted a sequential but customers wanted stick. end of story
Nothing is cost no object, especially developing a completely new gearbox for a small run of cars. I’m sure costs had their influence
same way his f1 used gold foil to insulate the muffler heat. that was cost no object. do you think it would matter to his customers if he charged $3m for stick or $6m for auto? this IS cost no object. he made it stick only bc thats what customers asked for. and i bet the track version will have sequential.
Hope the valkyrie won't be cancelled because it will be a problem for the T50. A significant number of potential buyers might be afraid to give a substantial deposit for the car..
Total value of gold used in all the F1s is not enough to develop and test a tenth of such a gearbox. £3 to 6 millions does not matter to customers when he hasn’t even pre-sold a lot of them? If money no object he would have offered 2 different gearboxes. I think most of the F1’s value comes from winning Le Mans so does not necessarily translate to this. And before I get childishly called a hater I was very much looking forward to this car, in fact believe I started this thread but little by little became very underwhelmed. Starting from the announcement of manual only, to having now looked at it.
You're entitled to your opinion but I firmly disagree. In my opinion: The Ferrari 6 speed gated manual shifter is pure heaven to drive! The semi-auto F1 transmission that was available on the 430 was not, it was jerky and coarse. The F1 transmission felt more at home on the Scuderia and 16M mainly because you drove those cars more aggressively but I hated it on the 430. I owned two 458s and, unlike the F1 transmission, the dual clutch on the 458 is superb. That's OK. We're all welcome to crave a different experience and put our money where our passion is. It's simply personal preference. I never said a manual is technically superior to a dual clutch transmission. That would be silly. T.50 is more about marrying the romantic past (McLaren F1) with more modern components. And, I, for one are glad they're making it. If I were wailing it around a track trying to set a lap time record would I prefer a dual clutch? Almost certainly yes! But I've driven several lightweight manual transmission cars on track and had a great time doing so. This is all about having fun. Gordon did say this Xtrac manual transmission is lighter and smaller than a dual clutch and he's confident it will have a great feel to it. Not offended in the least! I enjoy the debate and love that everyone has slightly different viewpoints and are passionate about these cars. It's awesome.
all of the cars are now pre sold the development of the engine cost an asbolute fortune as have some of the r&d aspects, he would have done an auto if the customers wanted it badly enough. his personal opinion is that a manual car is a drivers car also which influences things
I prefer the Monza to the Elva simply because it has the more emotive engine and to me looks better. However, the weight I think should be less, IIRC the Monza is a not a lot lighter than the 812. For me the T50 is one thing but the important thing is what it represents, it proves we DONT need turbo engines, we DONT need hybrid assistance and this is backed up again the fact Porsche is looking at building bigger capacity NA engines to meet future emissions requirements. Maybe just maybe someone will see this and realise that there is indeed a market for a pure sports car, that perhaps a few more people can afford!
no. problem is real manufacturers do need turbo and hybrid to meet regulations on mass scale. only gordons boutique can get away with it now.
That’s fair. I do think the Monza is a beautiful car (pretty than the Elva) and I’d be happy to have one if I had unlimited money. I watched Shmee’s video of him driving one and I was surprised Ferrari didn’t even attempt some airflow management like McLaren’s Active Air Management system. It just look untenable to drive at 40 mph+ without a helmet. McLaren claims their cockpit is calmed up to 70mph. I drove an Austin Healy 100M a few weeks ago and sunglasses were fine up to 35 mph but anything over that you needed proper goggles which luckily the owner provided. Totally agree! I have the 2019 Speedster and I love it but I keep wishing they’d build this config (NA engine, 6 speed manual) into a smaller, lighter, carbon fiber chassis, mid-engine car. The 718 is still a pretty heavy car for its size - roughly 1,000 pound heavier than the T.50 for example.
Wrong! https://corporate.ferrari.com/en/ferrari-monza-sp1-and-sp2-first-new-concept-limited-series-icona-cars “The Virtual Wind Shield was patented for this car in response to the need to allow the driver enjoy it at high speeds. Although it remains below the driver’s cone of vision, it delivers maximum driving comfort for a barchetta, both in terms of historic car benchmarks and models with similar architecture. The concept was first developed virtually using in-depth CFD modelling and then physically in the wind tunnel. A full-scale mock-up was built specifically for the Wind Tunnel in which our test-drivers alternated with dummies fitted out with pressure sensors (rake and keel probes). Because of the extreme nature of the car, the support of the test-drivers and their experience was vital both in the initial phase of defining the target and the final validation stage of the overall package. Instrumented dummies and computations, on the other hand, gave our engineers an in-depth understanding of the aerodynamic phenomena that need to be managed and also allowed us to increase the critical mass of the solutions tested. With no windscreen whatsoever, the air flowing over the bonnet would hit the driver’s face. The aim with adopting the Virtual Wind Shield was to minimise the negative effect of the air flow without compromising the exhilarating sense of speed and contact with the road that only a car of this kind can deliver. The Virtual Wind Shield is essentially an aerodynamic passage underneath the driver’s side aero screen, where the upper part is shaped as an aerofoil. Part of the air flowing over the bonnet enters the air intake under the aero screen, where it is accelerated and deflected vertically ahead of the instrument panel. It is aided in doing so by the nolder on the aero screen itself which creates strong suction thereby accelerating the air coming out of the duct beneath the wind shield. This generates what is known as a highly energised upwash that deflects the flow over the driver’s head creating a low-speed bubble around the cockpit. Inside the Virtual Wind Shield duct are two divergent fences. These two fences create a pressure variation between the central channel and the outer channels of the duct which minimises fluctuation in the flow field at the outer edge of the low speed bubble around the driver. This in turn reduces aerodynamic noise and boosts overall comfort by eliminating the risk of dangerous oscillations in the transverse aerodynamic forces around the driver’s head.”
Engineering Explained - if you are familiar with this guy, always some interesting points and the ENGINEERING of it all. .
my fav media report on t.50 is the road & track issue. really paints a great picture of the design and engineering ethos behind it
Road and Track https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/future-cars/a33483701/gordon-murray-t50-specs-photos-price-interview/ .
I think cars like the Speedster and Monza are less about the numbers and more about the experience and to me that's really the essence of what cars should be about in my view, it would be interesting to try determine when the world went truly numbers crazy, sure 200 mph was the target in the 80s but cars like the F40 were never defined by that, cars like that enormous whale like car built in Sweden are only defined by the numbers. It could be argued even Porsche with the GT4 took a brilliant concept and then saddled it with ridiculously long gear ratios, why give a car a manual box if you never actually get to use it much? My reference point is an Ariel Atom 3 supercharged. Had a spin in that, probably the most raw car I could ever imagine, again not really defined by its numbers but by the experience which is akin to wearing an engine in a back pack. The T50, granted the price point is very high and unattainable to most really does show that much of what we are told we 'need to have" we actually don't need at all. Which begs the question, who contributes more to a modern supercars development.....the engineers or the marketing department?
problem for manufacturers is govt regulations require soul sapping turbos, gpf, auto transmission, etc so all they have left is numbers. launch control has little to do with driving but having an amusement park ride is at least something. it will be left to niche manufacturers to make true drivers cars.
this is more like it https://www.topgear.com/car-news/first-look/gma-t50s-outrageous-720bhp-racing-version-t50 Makes a lot more sense
T.50s - a race car, not a 'track' car https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/future-cars/a33913698/gordon-murray-t50s-sketch-interview-specs/ > more power - 720 hp vs 654 hp (revised cylinder heads, new cams, a higher compression ratio and a new free-flow exhaust system) > race tranny - paddle-shift 6-spd XTrac Instantaneous Gearchange System (IGS) > more downforce - added aero, large wing > lighter by 94 kg - new body panels, 1 passenger seat removed, along anything else not needed on the track like air con and infotainment "Of the 25 planned, GMA has sold 12 T.50Ss, and considering the road car is now sold out, this is your last chance to get one." This has got to give the people who signed those crazy/onerous contracts a nice warm, fuzzy feeling. .
The T50 has a purpose built box anyway. Its a drivers car for people who actualy know how to drive, not a handbag for men Gt car which is pretty much all the other moderns. The T50 customer base wanted a stick for good reason, they're more fun esp in road car. The track version will probably have paddles, its not that hard to do. On top of which paddles require no linkage so that part is way easier than a stick to engineer(one reason the new vette does not have a stick) and theyre far easier to meet compliance requirements. A stick is in many ways far more difficult in terms of emission compliance and for that matter vehicle dynamics.(anotehr reason ferrari is too lazy to offer a stick).
Spot on. But its not just regualtion, most epopel cant really drive, and the type of customer who can afford these supercars tends to be older, so manufactuers make them as aesy to sue as a hyundai, and at road speeds as boring. That drives the spec too. Then as you say turbos and launch control for paper numbers.
