Has Gordon Murray fallen" The engineer behind what was once the world?s fastest production car now builds fancy carts for mall cops. A cursory glance at the Shell concept car, a three-cylinder microcar bearing Murray?s logo, could leave the impression of a once famous athlete reduced to living on the streets. After all, Murray made the McLaren F1! What on earth could he want with this"
Ah, but he has been devising ?urban mobility solutions? since 2010, seeing a chance to apply his technical expertise to problems that affect the lives of millions of people globally rather than just a few wealthy folks who like to go fast. The canopy of this latest effort cracks open like a pistachio, exposing a carbon-fiber structure that reveals Murray?s underlying genius. This concept employs a lightweight, simplified method of car construction that could become the ?biggest revolution in high-volume automotive manufacture since the Model T,? claims the website for Gordon Murray Design. Coming from the man who brought us the world?s first roadgoing carbon-fiber monocoque and set the standard for all hypercars to come, it?s believable. He is just applying similar ideas to something nearly eight inches shorter than a Smart Fortwo.
At 98.4 inches long and 53.1 inches wide, the Shell concept car is claimed to weigh 1210 pounds. An evolution of Murray?s earlier T.25 and T.27 prototypes, this concept represents his template for what he calls iStream, a pared-down assembly process ...