Prepare Gordon Murray Car T.50 for customer deliveries around the world means testing the system and its safety just like that of a regular production car. For GMA, this meant taking the authentic XP1 prototype to the Papenburg Automotive Test (ATP) in Germany to perform a series of torture tests that would be comical if they weren’t so brutal. actual $2.9 million coupe version. As narrator Dario Franchitti explains, many tests aim to ensure that air bag The deployment system knows how to communicate one extreme situation after another, so the bag will deploy in a crash rather than when the T.50 is launched into a pile of gravel. Yes, it’s true. The T.50 was traveling at nearly 20 mph into – and then onto – a 7-foot-long pile of rocks. We don’t know what the test was meant to simulate but the T.50 hit it, swerving over the top, its airbags not deployed.
Other challenges have drawn a more direct path to real-world driving. There’s a 37 mph plunge through the Belgian cobbles and another at a similar speed through a speed bump, a pothole-simulated crash for “anyone unfortunate enough to drive on the road.” of Great Britain” and a frantic plunge on a fake railway crossing. Ramp testing took the 2,173-pound, 654-horsepower coupe off a 10-inch ramp at 43 mph. The steel beam test simulates plowing the wheel face into the curb, which breaks the tie rod and damages the tire. Then there’s the board washing at nearly 50 mph, and finally, plowing into a 180-pound “simulated wild boar.”
The man behind the machine has clearly not forgotten how to design fast cars to protect their riders. If Murray gives the T.50 a little more ground clearance, it could make for a great ride for those who know how to travel. really light.
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