Gordon Murray

[pmontero]

una brevísima reseña de los alcances de este señor en el automovilismo

Gordon Murray

Gordon Murray has enjoyed a distinguished career in the automotive and motorsport industries initially as technical director at Brabham before joining McLaren. In 1989 he designed the ‘Rocket’ which at 370kg remains the world’s lightest sports car and a benchmark for vehicle dynamic performance. More than 50 examples have been built. However, he is probably most famous for setting up McLaren Cars with Ron Dennis and designing the McLaren F1; widely recognised as the world’s best sports and driver’s car by several motoring juries and recently voted by a motoring programme as the best car ever built.

Earlier in his career designed and built the first ever composites facility for race cars, which included the detailed design of the autoclave, oven and cooling system. He also designed and built a complete wind tunnel facility including the building, rolling road and control system; the tunnel was the first in the industry constructed from composite panels.

His patents include a close-couple transmission, mass damper suspension, oil tank construction system, automatic brake cooling system, aero centre-of-pressure control system, and 3-seater layout. His firsts in Formula One include pull rod suspension, onboard timing, carbon brakes, dry sump gearbox, carbon chassis panels, ground effect aerodynamics, air locks and pit stops.

His racing awards include the Bruce Cooper and Cords Trophies; he also finished 22nd out of 300 cars participating in the 1995 Mille Miglia. Numerous individual awards include the Ken Lee Trophy for outstanding achievement in South African Motorsport, Coche A La Vista , Colin Chapman Trophy, Pirelli Trophy, Route in Corsa Award, Autocar Award and Prince Phillip Designer Award for outstanding achievement in design for business and society.

He was recently awarded an honorary professorship by Durban Institute of Technology, his alma mater, where he first studied mechanical engineering and as a student won the Arthur May prize for gaining the highest marks in his final year project, which was the design of a 4-stroke engine.