MY WEEK IN CARS

Murray shows off his T33 and talent for making the complicated sound simple

- Steve Cropley

MONDAY

To Gordon Murray Automotive’s spacious new headquarters in Surrey to view the svelte T33 supercar (see p6) in an underground car park that will become a heritage museum when the architects and builders have finished with it.

To my eye, this is Murray’s finest effort yet for simple beauty, its flowing lines made possible by a new underbody aerodynamics system called Passive Boundary Layer Control, discovered during development of the previous T50.

The PBLC concept is a bit of a brain-stretcher, but luckily Murray is unmatched at explaining stuff to simpletons. The T50’s lower-level downforce is created in an underbody air channel that can be more aggressively shaped (therefore effective), because the rear-mounted fan is on hand to suck ‘dirty air’ out of the way via a strategically placed duct. The aero team found that by using a similar duct in the T33 and powering it with suction created at speed behind the car, they could generate 30% of the fan car’s downforce and eliminate any need for strakes, skirts and slots. It’s easy when you know how.

It was nearly impossible to find a 5 with the floor still in it