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Gordon Murray Design T25 city car: the scoop (2008)

By Tim Pollard (artist's impressions by Motor Forecast)

Spy shots

30 October 2008 21:27

Gordon Murray T25: how it will be built

Work on the T25 is understood to be progressing rapidly but under conditions of strict secrecy. Murray plans to license the design to another firm to manufacture, and is already in talks with two major industrial companies.

But the $25 billion US federal loan package to help car makers start building low-emission vehicles has prompted a fresh surge of interest from America. The company says talks include designing cars significantly different to the T25 but which use its ‘revolutionary’ manufacturing process.

Why small cars are the next big thing

‘We have been inundated with inquiries in the past two or three months,’ Murray told CAR Online. ‘We’re seeing a huge swing to smaller cars in America, and this time at least a percentage of it is irreversible. We thought there would be a five-year delay before we brought it to America but I think we were wrong on that and the programme will have to be accelerated. You can probably chop half off that.’

GMD is on track to have the first running prototypes on the road by early 2009. Wind-tunnel testing of the final designs is already well advanced and design of the major internal components is almost complete.  Our artist’s impressions are based on insider info and give the best look yet of how the T25 will look when production versions hit the road in 2012.

T25: costs, weights, stats

Real-world analysis for the final design are said to show that the T25 will hit its ambitious targets on weight, cost and carbon dioxide emissions. Simplicity is the key here – the T25 represents a welcome return to less is more.

It will weigh just 550kg and cost from £5500. Murray claims that it will produce 40% less CO2 than a standard car throughout its lifecycle, and one tonne less over a typical year's motoring. Equipped with a 51bhp three-cylinder petrol engine, it will return 81mpg and 78g/km, says Murray.

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