📍 ‘Thirty-four years after the McLaren F1 rewrote the supercar rulebook, Gordon Murray has effectively done it again.’
The new GMSV S1 has a central driving position, three seats, a naturally aspirated V12 and — gloriously — a six-speed manual gearbox.
No hybrid assistance. No enormous rear wing. No attempt to impress the Nürburgring timing department.
The clever bit? Murray hasn’t recreated the F1. He has revisited the thinking that made it extraordinary.
♔ Full Story
▪️There are certain cars one should probably leave alone.
◼︎The McLaren F1 is fairly high on that list.
◼︎Yet Gordon Murray has one considerable advantage over anyone attempting to reinterpret it:
◼︎Unveiled at Monterey Car Week, the Gordon Murray Special Vehicles S1 is essentially the road-going companion to last year’s more aggressive S1 LM.
◼︎But where the LM celebrates the racing F1 GTR, the S1 looks unmistakably towards the original road car.
▪️The recipe: A bespoke 4.2-litre Cosworth naturally aspirated V12 producing around 680bhp and revving beyond 12,000rpm.
◼︎The important bit: Power goes through a proper six-speed manual gearbox. Three pedals remain present and correct.
◼︎The seating: Driver in the middle, two passengers slightly behind — just as Murray intended back in 1992.
◼︎The philosophy: Less downforce, slightly softer suspension and greater refinement make this a car intended for a very fast journey rather than merely a very fast lap.
◼︎And despite additional sound insulation and more comfortable seats, the carbon-bodied S1 is claimed to weigh less than GMA’s already featherweight T.50.
◼︎Only 64 will be built (the precise number of road-going McLaren F1s ever built), and all are reportedly spoken for.
◼︎Perhaps that is the real significance of the S1.
◼︎In an age when the hypercar increasingly means batteries, enormous power figures and software managing the excitement, Murray has returned to something rather simpler:
◼︎Lightweight. A magnificent engine. A manual gearbox. And the driver sitting exactly where he belongs — in the middle.
♔ Bottom line: The McLaren badge may be missing.
📍 ‘The philosophy most certainly isn’t.’
