GORDON MURRAY'S T.33

Missed out on a T.50 but need that Cosworth V12 in your life? Gordon’s got your back. Meet the milder-mannered T.33

- JACK RIX

Would you like to see my new toy?” I can’t see Gordon’s mouth when he sidles up to me and says this, but I just know he’s grinning behind that mask. I follow him around the corner, no idea what he’s about to show me – another obscure 50cc Italian motorbike? The world’s lightest, most powerful Nerf gun? He lifts the lid off a wooden crate and there it is, Alfa’s short-lived 3.0-litre flat-12, the F1 engine that powered his Brabham BT46 fan car, looking fresher than the day it left the factory. “It’s one of only three still in existence that I know of. Been looking for one for a while, found this in America,” he pauses for a moment, staring at his magnificent slab of racing history. “No idea what I’m going to do with it yet, I’d like to build a new BT46 around it from scratch.”

How does this 75-year-old find the energy? At an age when most of us would be basing our day around breaking in a new pair of slippers, Gordon finds himself in charge of a technology group about to break ground on a new £50m global headquarters in Windlesham, Surrey. The car company bit, Gordon Murray Automotive, is currently putting the final touches to the T.50 (a £2.36m McLaren F1 referencing, central driving position, three-seater supercar with the world’s most complicated aero and the mother of all V12 engines), developing a “revolutionary, lightweight, ultra-efficient” platform for EVs and plotting how to keep his Cosworth V12 alive for “as long as possible”, which will involve adding hybrid assistance to future supercars.