AT THE SUMMIT I CALL MY SON. IT’S NEARLY bedtime back home, but I have to share this. Outside, the sky is a wash of pinks and purples set over a cloud inversion that is filling the valley below like Chantilly cream on a sundae. There is nobody around. My hands are still shaking slightly.
‘Hi Daddy!’
‘Hi dude, listen to this…’ and I blip the throttle, once, twice. YEEOW! YEEOW! The cockpit and surrounding mountains are filled with furious five-digit revs. A V12 with the response of a superbike engine.
‘Wowww! That is sooo cool!’ That is not a generic reaction. He might be only seven, but he knows his cars.
‘I’ve just had the most amazing drive,’ I say. ‘This car is unbelievable! I’m about to head back down the mountain, but I just wanted you to hear that.’
‘Thank you, Daddy.’
‘Love you! Sleep well.’
As the screen goes black I press the tiny, covered button behind the gearlever to still the titanium valves for a minute or two. Take a few breaths, enjoy the moment, be present… all that stuff we’re meant to do every day but never have the time for. Because I need to mentally bottle this, tuck it away in the old hippocampus for rainy days years from now. Even in this job, drives like that don’t come along very often. I’ve been lucky enough to have a few in the McLaren F1 and now I’ve got one in the T.50 to add to the mental scrapbook.
A beautiful, deserted road and a car that requires every bit of your attention but rewards with sensations and sounds that are the stuff of dreams. A car that feels worth its sky-high price tag, yet immerses you in the driving experience so deeply that you forget any such figures and drive it with the joy and abandon of a hot hatch.
And the best bit is that I’ve still got the return journey ahead of me…
Rewind just over a week and I’m sitting in the new Gordon Murray Automotive HQ in Windlesham, the man himself the other side of a glass coffee table. Typical of a room in a building with his name on it, there is also an old jukebox in here. I’m aware that you want to hear more about Spain, so we won’t dally, but I think the conversation provides essential context and is worth a synopsis.
The story of the T.50 is one of time and money. Or rather, timing and money. Murray tells me that he felt that there was no point doing a successor to the F1 before now because things hadn’t moved on enough
