Gordon Murray - Five of his Personal Favourites

foreign classic and welcome to what can only be described as an underground layer but one that is full of fascinating and often one-off machinery and you might have seen this collection of cars previously on YouTube on other channels and in those channels people go to Great length to try and talk about every car that's in there and we thought that was maybe not the right way to go so instead we ask Gordon Murray the man who owns all these wonderful fascinating cars we asked him to pick five of his favorites and you'd think that would be a tall order but he delivered he picked five and they really are some special special machines [Music] now we've got access to Gordon's fantastic collection and we could have a walk around and look at the cars and point at them and go oh isn't that shiny and lovely but it'll be far better if we had the man himself here to extola virtues of these cars so that's what we have actual In the Flesh Gordon Murray here in your amazing sort of garage Workshop space just dream environment for me that's I've just moved out and got a double garage and thought that was the best thing ever and then I walked down the stairs through the store and I'm like good luck this is this is still a bit Ott isn't it no it's it's magnificent and this is this is a curated collection isn't it this isn't everything's got reasons absolutely yeah it's it's my sort of cars it's not you don't you you won't find it sort of regular Supercar collection here with all the latest Ferraris and Lamborghinis this is a lot to do with my growing up actually in the 60s you know I was very much a 60s guy watching uh sports car racing and road cars coming out in the 60s and of course that was a fantastic period to be around in other videos that you've done with with all the channels it's been it's been about the collection of a whole but but for us you've reduced it a little bit you've boiled it down to five that you really want to tell people about and the reasons why and that in we're not doing it in any sort of particular order of favoritism but we're starting with this rather stunning Lotus so this is one of the five we're going to talk about today and what is it about this one where did this one in particular come from why why is this one of your five that you want to talk about today growing I was a teenager Chapman was my hero really um you know the lightweight that the racing cars the road cars and in those days I mean a a new Lotus Road car was a real event I mean you look at this car this is still one of the top five prettiest cars I think ever ever designed Peter Cohen Taylor did The Styling and costing that the aerodynamics for for chunky for Chapman and this came out in the earlscott motor show in 1957 and I can remember seeing the magazines I was in South Africa then so the magazines used to come see mail it's going to take about a month to get there and I can remember seeing this in the magazine just looked like a spaceship this must have give some people some sore necks at the Notre showing like oh yeah I mean just phenomenal when you think of how Square cars were around there and how blocky cars were the other reason why it's very nostalgic for me is this was the world's first all composite monocoque and of course it's grp but it was a composite monocog and of course the McLaren F1 was the world's first road car using carbon as a composite so that was a first then and the F1 was the first in 92 so for those two reasons it's quite nostalgic but I just love the car I love the concept the shape the fact it's got that lovely little 1.2 single overhead cam climax in it and you're explaining earlier that this one in a in a life before yourself has had a frankly tremendous amount of work done yeah you've got to be careful with these because these being structural grp um it's it's all gel coated the whole thing and what you're looking at is gel coat with paint on top basically and this came from a Dutch Chap and he had spent a fortune uh cutting it right back and taking the whole gel coat off re-gelling it and then basically restarting the whole car with wet and dry and then re-spring it so this is quite simply the best body I think I've ever seen on an elite I also particularly liked it like it in the dark blue yeah and this gets driven as well I believe you yeah it drives them all all the ones I fit in uh I I drive and I switch over about a dozen cars every year so I'll bring 12 cars from home and then bring 12 cars from here to replace it different every year that's that's the thing that you know these these machines they need to they need to breathe they need to get hot they need to get cold the fluidity to move this one in fact I'm planning on rally this year oh really well that's uh that starts us off then so should we have a look at the car number two which which one would you like to uh tell us all about next uh possibly the better longer do I have a look at that one then [Music] the chances are people looking at won't entirely know what it is do I recognize the badge but the car is a decent and that's normally something you associate with V8 and being a lot bigger and a lot more brush and this is quite small and Nimble and more delicate which obviously fits into the kind of interest that you have reflected in the rest of the collection but what is this one what was the appeal what's the story behind it I think initially it was just a design when this came out in the early 60s and I saw it once again in the magazines I just thought what a pretty little car you know and of course being mid-rare engine and having uh technically it's interesting too because it had a back it's got a backbone chassis and this is before the Europa right okay so this is the first mid-rare engine cart of a backbone chassis and uh that was fine for this much power but when he went on to try and use that on the Mangusta the backbone it just didn't work on that so he had to Res for the panteria he had to go back to more conventional chassis so it was an attraction it was technical um I love the fact too you've got this exotic beautiful Italian shape and it's got a cooking 1500 Cortina GT engine on the back quite ironic and and actually when I bought it I thought maybe because some people have put twin cams in them and I thought maybe I'll swap it for twin cam but after having driven it that engine suits the car so well with its torque delivery and free revving so it was it's sort of love at first sight that's a pre-cross engine I assume yep yeah I had a I had a mark one 1500 GT with a pre-cross and it's such a yeah that engine gets onto your skin and that was it that was in a four-door lovely engines the three bearing under five bearing cranks yeah it's got a great Design Story too because there's three well-known designers involved in this so D Tomaso this is when he started his love affair with Ford engines stuck with him of course throughout um he wanted to build some prototypes of this car and try and sell the thing as a going concern to Ford so he built five he went to uh physory the coach Builder and he designed the car and they built five four or five uh aluminum bodied prototypes took it to Ford not interested so he then went to gear uh who built coach Builders of course and he said could you redesign it in fiberglass for production and they said well we'll build it for you and they had a young designer working there georgiato so he did the final change from the aluminum body to the fiberglass body but actually had some hands on it yeah so it's had three designers working on it but but to be fair um they they stuck to the original fizzori design so his original aluminum prototypes are quite similar to this it's a stunning little thing it's just for me because this was their this was the first car from decimazole it was his first car yeah and it's such from a production point of view it's so rounded it's so complete it's pretty well put together isn't it yeah it's a lovely little thing and in the end they only made 53. and I but depending on who you listen to there's about 35 left today but what is the correct pronunciation of the name of this car so it's uh Bella lunga right so I don't mess it up on camera and embarrass myself yeah Italian racetrack yeah that's uh yeah that's a beautiful thing I don't know how you're going to beat it with car number three but what is car number three car number three is um a Lancia apia another very rare car very rare car Lancia apio zagato body foreign car number three our choice number three I should say it's quite pretty isn't it it's lovely little thing yeah and once again quite rare yeah how many of these exist or I believe to exist well they it started off with um the basic Lancia happy it was 1953 and I made about a hundred thousand of those quite a boxy saloon car but Lancia gave 5 000 of the chassis to various coach builders in Italy to build bodies and zagato of that 5000 did about 700 steel body gtes and then for 57 56 and 57 they wanted to go racing so they did about somewhere between 30 and 50 aluminum body cars had cigato of which this is one and they were so successful they came first second and third in the 1100 CC class at uh in the millimedia and in 57 and rumor has it that this is this is a factory reserve for the 57 race so it could well have legitimate race car blood yeah but but whether it has or not or not really bothered I just I just love the car you know I love the shape it's a stunning I think it's it's lovely little aluminum body the interior is great a fit which is always a bonus how do you find something like this one of our 250 owners right is in Italy and found out that I love 60s Italian Classics and said if you ever want to find something let me know let me know and I did because you delivered didn't he yeah I mean it doesn't get any better than this it really is a great example it hasn't been over restored you know it's all very original and I've just reading I'm going through the process of registering this this is my latest acquisition so I haven't driven it yet so I should drive it this summer and the plan is to as with the others take this one out and yeah yeah probably this is a this would be a great one to go on a rally yeah because you were saying that the engine is quite special in this as well yes a lovely little thing it's an incredibly short narrow angle V4 1100 CC uh standard they were just over 50 horsepower and then they they did a mild tune on them for these sagato cars up to about 60 horsepower I mean to give people a sense of scale that's probably what 30 centimeters yeah I mean it's this is yeah it's your hand it's my hand and it's even got the that's proper engineering you've got your cylinder numbers cast into it yep you don't get that anymore so it's such a narrow angle V the cylinder heads off a single casting they spread across the block that's it's fascinating Little Engine it's stuff like that it's not just the car I love I love the fact it's got technical stuff in it like that too and you say what's our powers this this is the things about 60 horsepower it's a lot for well there's something as big as your school ruler this is that's a lot of power yeah it was enough to go racing with I seem to have ended up with quite a few zagato body cars and it's not I didn't set out to start a zagato collection I just like what they did in this period you know they had they had some clangers as well but uh most of the bodies they did in this period were um were really good so this would be a sort of zagato thumbs up what's a uh what's this again there's a couple of other funny enough Valencia's there's a couple of other lenses that got a little bit out of control I think in the 70s um I think where they lost the they lost the balance um but the 60s I think a cold spada was working for them then and he did a lot of great cars um in fact I think he did the he did the zagato alpha the green one yeah which I'll have a look at that one yeah later on but next we've got car four so we'll go and have a look at that one let's have a look and then we have number four and this is I mean every car's special but this this is a legit record break well record breaker and still record holder isn't it yeah as far as I know it still owns a vulnerable Soul flap record for a one liter one liter car did just under 122 miles an hour on the salt yes and for the obviously people will recognize the uh the badge but for the people who might not be familiar with it what what is this model so now bath 1000 GT Bill barrel when the bill Barrel means uh twin cam in Italian and it's the story started this is on a 5600 platform like they all were and those in the 50s and 60s the story started actually with uh the 750s and they they won their class all the time and then it changed to a one liter formula for the lower capacity class and they built a single cam car with about 70 horsepower which was pretty quick and then they decided to put their beautiful little Colombo designed to encamp the one liter twin cam which has just over 100 horsepower yeah they won the class in 62 and then for 63 they did this actual car with an extended tail the ducktail which was even quicker and they won the championship again in 63 and they didn't make many of them I don't know how many they made it's all Ali body again but it's uh it's quite a rare little Motorcar and particularly this one as a record holder and has this one has this one always been a race car did that you're aware of yeah these were all built for racing yeah the road cars were just called their 1000 GT or the monomial they were called and they had the single cam engine right the racing cars had the Twins and the twin camera engine is beautiful little engine yeah yeah it's lovely little craftsmanship with the to make the carbs work and it's just the other funny story about this particular car is that my dad was William Murray Bill Murray his motor mechanic in in South Africa where I was growing up and this was bought off the the British Motor Show stand this was the car they had on the stand by us Sir William Murray from Scotland and I still got all the paperwork so who this was bought by a Bill Murray straight off the stand amazing interesting too that these were you know when an E-Type Jag was two grand these were about 2 300. really yeah but of course incredibly rare but if you wanted to win races this is what you had to have and how many of these you think are in existence I don't know how many of the bill Barrel ones they built actually I must try and find them not a lot just literally they built them to sell for racing well I think and then the last one the last car out of your pick of five it's not even in here we've got to go outside and have a look at that because I believe you but if you drove that to the office today yes I did so on the ice that was fun [Music] thank you and then we're outside in in the presence of quite an arresting collar in the best possible way because all cars should be bright colors as far as I'm concerned and again for people who may not be familiar what's what's this and it's it's a relatively unknown car it was built by zagato back in the late 60s early 70s and I only made about 1100 of them I think all together most of them rusted away quite quickly the vast majority were 1300s and then they made a 1600 with a slightly longer tail of which this is one when it came out it absolutely polarized the elf Easters because they were so used to the lovely rounded curves from betony and didn't Farina of the uh the Sprints and the GTS and spiders and stuff and then this was a young designer a cold Sparta at zagato and came up with this outrageous wedge yeah it's very sudden isn't it yeah with the perspex front and the offset slots and all the wacky bit and you know little bumps like this and it really divided people 50 50. but I was always on the side of Love rather than hate I just loved it I think it was so wacky and so pretty it's a steel body car I think it had Ali Bonnet and doors but it's basically a steel body card and as I say they're made about 1100. so um I saw alphaholics with their gtar where they have sort of modern a more modern all-ally twin cam engine 2.1 and um you know modern brakes are better suspension and and I thought I've always loved those Alphas and I I approached Max from alcoholics I phoned him up and I said I didn't know him I said to him I'd love one of your GT ARS but I'd love it in a zagato body and he was in the states at the time and and there was a long silence on the phone and I thought God he's he's on the on the hate side of the 50 50. and then after a bit of a pause he said I've always loved those and I'd love to do one of our gtars in in this body show and the good news is the underpinnings of the chassis is exactly the same as the as the GTA so mechanically not not a huge leap or any sort of yeah major changes needed to facilitate that so they found one um in in Italy brought it back and the the body shell took over a year because that just didn't fit right um nowhere near fitting it's got a massive cross member at the back just behind the seats and that they had to cut that out move it back six inches so I could get the length and then my head I was miles away from fitting so they've dropped the floor pan five inches um to get me in and at the same time of course they de-rusted it and seam welded and stuff so it's um they did a lovely job on the body so this isn't this isn't just your car this is your car this is one of one this is absolutely and even some styling stuff because although I love the shape there were three or four things that I really hated on them they used to have huge big feared door handles right in the middle of the door black and chrome slightly in slightly incongruous and and then I said I really hate those and Max suggested using the Ferrari Dino the little handles on the top and then a horrible sort of big Square rectangular race track fuel filler on one side so we got rid of that and then we put that in the middle at the rear and it had very wide Chrome rain gutters and we got rid of those it was a it was a combined effort um definitely you know they came up with some good suggestions I had things I wanted to change uh but it's turned out to be a fantastic usable motor car which was the plan yeah the color was a funny story because I so many red cars you know I wanted so I thought Silver or I had seen in the alpha Museum one of these in a bright green and I thought Silver or green so I said to Max he's he asked he started asking me what color and I said to Max I got this incredibly bright green and brought him a sample and he went oh please don't paint it I can't please please don't and uh but we went ahead with it and when he's when the body show was finished he sent me some pictures of the shell and yes it looks phenomenal you know so I won them over in the end I think that's how it works so when you you know you look at a sample of a color and it's it's very easy to be scared by that yeah but if you've if you've got the if you've got the gumption to follow that through it can pay off because that's yeah it suits the car yeah well it's an amazing thing it's an amazing collection and we uh hugely appreciate you sort of cherry picking those five cars including this one to talk us through it's um yeah it's been fun thank you oh thank you for having us and uh yeah well you've got more to do and I believe you're going to put some more miles on this as well so indeed we shall leave you to do that and uh yeah I'll go I'll go full Mike Brewer Wheeler Dealers because the car's in the middle but thank you very much for having us thank you sadly uh I held out my hand but I haven't bought this so I'm gonna go back and get in my C-Max now thank you Gordon cheers [Music] and there he goes driving a car that he's had a built bespoke for him and that was his top pick out of the five today and you'd think given that he drives them all he'd find it impossibly difficult to choose five but choose five he has hope you've enjoyed watching hope you enjoyed that little look around Gardens collect question they've all gone home now I'm still here I guess I live here now don't forget to subscribe [Music] hello I'm still here hello

Channel: Car & Classic

Views: 579,646

Keywords: abarth, de tomaso, gordon murray, gordon murray design, classic car, retro car, car collection, lotus, lotus elite, car and classic, car and classic auctions, motoring, automotive, classic motorsport, british classic car, zagato, bespoke car, lightweight car

Id: cYgCx2tgFnI

Length: 22min 57sec (1377 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 18 2023