The Gordon Murray Group is investing £50 million in setting up a new global headquarters in Windlesham, Surrey as it gears up to put its T50 hypercar into production in January 2022.
Based around a distinctive atom-shaped building once owned by gas giant BOC, the 130,000sq ft centre will house the firm's design, engineering, research and development, sales, marketing and heritage divisions. The original building will remain, as will the surrounding 54 acres of parkland.
The campus will be built in three phases. The first will result in the completion of the sales, manufacturing and heritage facilities, as well as a purpose-built test road for prototypes by the end of 2022. The second phase will take place in 2023, with the engineering centre being developed. And the final phase will bring new R&D and T50 servicing facilities to the site by the end of 2024.
It's anticipated that the new headquarters will create 100 new jobs across various sectors within the next three years. The buildings, said founder Gordon Murray, will be practical and energy-efficient but won't be "showy".
The Windlesham facility is just seven miles from the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, where the Murray-designed F1 supercar entered production in 1992.
The new £2.8m T50 supercar and and its track-only T50s sibling will still be built at the firm's existing site in nearby Dunsfold, but a secretive third model - dubbed Project 2 – will be produced at Windlesham.
Most of the 100 T50s set to be built have been sold, while Murray claims that around half of the 25 planned track versions have been accounted for during the pre-sale period.
Murray said "progress on the T50 is good," with the first prototype - named XP1, like the first prototype of its McLaren F1 inspiration - around 50% complete and the monocoque for the second secured. A total of 11 prototypes will be built before customer cars hit the production line.
Engine development work is currently under way, using an Ultima chassis that has been adapted to house the T50's Cosworth-developed 3.9-litre V12. Early tests suggest the final car will actually weigh less than the brand's 890kg target while pushing out slightly more power than the initially claimed 650bhp.
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Gordon Murray T50 is V12-powered McLaren F1 successor
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Enthusiasm Applauded
Next I'll be reading that TVR are about to start production.
Believe it when it happens like all of Murray's projects!
And Autocar should do a little more research and tell the whole story! After BOC, Kamal Siddiqi of Kamkorp bought it, and had all kinds of plans for it, including it being a Bristol Cars factory, which didn't happen. The "urban explorers" have visited and if you search for the 28 days later site, you will see photos of classic Bristol cars in need of renovation there.
I don't think £50 million will be anything like enough, and I whilst I appreciate that there is a current requirement for social distancing - 130,000 square feet and only 100 jobs created?!
+1 @LucyP
The only refreshing thing about this article is that it isn't written by Steve Cropley!
LucyP wrote:
Classic and Sports Car has just produced an article about this building and all the Bristol artifacts left there. Apparently, most of it was spares and, more fascinatingly, the wooden bucks for hand producing the body panels for nearly every Bristol since the year dot! Have a look at the C&SC website.
Interesting photos. Thank you.
Luckily the Bristol Owners' Club and Bristol Owners' Heritage Trust seem to have rescued a lot of parts etc. which will help owners of classic Bristols.
Question
"Most of...around half of"
Why couldn't exact sales figures be given?