LET THERE BE LIGHT
‘I MADE A HUGE MISTAKE HERE ON THE F1,’ SAYS Gordon Murray, pointing to the T.50’s bulkhead, no doubt dismaying the McLaren F1 faithful in the process. The designer, in spritely and convivial form despite the ongoing pandemic, arrived just moments earlier in a blur of blipped downshifts behind the wheel of his fabulous Zagato Alfa, and clad, as usual, in one of his trademark ebulliently patterned shirts. He’s now in full flow, the patter as smooth as the unpunctured surfacing on his new creation.
His scorn is directed at the rear windows on the F1, either side of the driver. As he points out, when a passenger occupies one of those side seats, all the driver gets to see in the interior rear-view mirror on that side is their awestruck/petrified – delete as appropriate – face. With the T.50 there’s no rear glass at all, and no door mirrors either. Your only rear visibility will be via a camera-based system, displayed on left and right dash-mounted screens, and supplemented by a tiny camera mounted in the cone of the 400mm suction fan at the rear for reverse parking. ‘We didn’t go for mirrors on this as I shot myself in the foot a bit when we moved the cabin forward and couldn’t meet the eye angles of the F1,’ explains Murray. ‘They would have had to be here [high and forwards], and mirrors have to be twice the size they were in glazed panels in the roof, but they weigh 2.2kg each and are an option (no-cost). One suspects Murray’s ideal T.50 does not feature them…
