Beyond Perfection

Murray returned to improve on the McLaren Fl with his own GMA T.50 - and a little insight from three-time Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti

- James Page

THE ANGELES CREST Highway winds through forests and mountains north of Los Angeles, bordered by rockfaces and climbing to almost 8000ft. Not surprisingly, it's a favourite of local car enthusiasts, and it's here that everything came together for Dario Franchitti and the GMA T.50.

The three-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 had spent a week in California, giving 'taxi rides' to American media, and on the Friday set out along the same road, en route to the Good Vibes Breakfast Club. After a careful cruise there in deference to the senior GMA director alongside him (a nervous passenger), he diplomatically arranged to drive back alone. It would be just him and the Gordon Murray-designed supercar he'd helped to develop.

'It was one of the greatest drives I've had,' Franchitti recalls. 'Those hairpins, the long, flowing corners, going through dips and crests and just driving for the pure pleasure of it. The feedback the car gave me, the way it made me feel, was exactly what I hoped it would be. I went back to the development team, the engineering team, the styling team, all the people involved, and said, “Yeah, we've nailed it.”'

It was the culmination of a journey that could trace its roots to when Franchitti first met Murray while doing some filming work for Goodwood and interviewed him about the McLaren F1. The two of them immediately got on and, when the legendary designer's original plans for the T.50 launch were scuppered by Covid, he thought instead of doing something with Franchitti. The Scotsman quickly agreed, but then suggested going further.