“W e had packaged the car around a five-litre V 12 and time was short. We started talking to others manufacturers.
wanting to know about what we were going to build. I talked philosophy. I told them we wanted to build the best sports car in the world. Myself, Ron and the others had already set down one critical objective: it had to be a driver’s car, which immediately ruled out offset controls and poor visibility. 1 told them about the three seats. We also want a long-legged, grand touring car. “The other design objectives were more detailed. The weight target was 1000kg, we wanted to keep the width to 1,8m and the overhangs at an absolute minimum because 1 wanted the polar moment o f inertia to be low. 1 also wanted to maintain the centre of pressure position, which production cars never address and is h alf the reason for high-speed instability problems. In fact, if you make a list o f what I wanted to achieve, make a list o f everything you think is bad about mid-engined sports cars.” What Murray didn’t have was an engine. “O f course, the engine was a priority from the beginning. I knew absolutely that I did not want a turbo so we made a list o f those who can build high-revving, large capacity, normally aspirated engines capable o f lOObhp per litre. It’s a short list: Honda, BMW and Ferrari. Not Porsche, not Mercedes, though Lamborghini gets close.” Honda, o f course, made most sense with the racing connection. “I had several meetings with the technical people at Tochigi and the only discussion was whether it should be a V I0 or a V I2. In those days I set 450bhp as a minimum. The F 40 and 9 5 9 were 450-480b hp and heavier so I knew w e’d have a better power-to-weight ratio. “Things progressed very well with Honda. They discarded the idea o f using a racing engine because if you try turning a racing engine into a road-car engine you need to change pistons, rods, use a different concept o f rings, change the valve seating, the exhaust system and add all the emission gear. It’s cheaper and easier to start from scratch and do a lOObhp per litre engine, than detune a 200bhp per litre racing one. “The funny thing with the Honda engine programe was they never really said no. It ju st sort o f drifted into oblivion. I think they were nervous about the green movement. Then Jaguar and Bugatti came along w ith 550bhp and even though I knew they were going to be 50 per cent heavier. I started to get nervous about engine capacity1 and increased it to around 5.3-litres from a V 12. Honda really started to go cool on the idea.
Three were serious, and one [an unnamed Japanese maker] was very serious and prepared to build a 5.3-litre V 12 from scratch” . Fate intervened. For an unremembered reason, Murray decided to go to Hockenheim for the 1990 German Grand Prix at the end o f July. It was the first race he’d attended since the end o f the 1988 season. There and, he swears, quite by accident, he m eet Paul Rosche, BMW M otorsport’s engine designer. The same man who designed the BMW engine that powered the M urray-designed and Piquet driven Brabham BT52 to the championship title in 1983. “Paul asked me, ‘H ow ’s the engine going?’ and I told him I didn't really know, that we were running out o f time and still didn’t have a decision. “Paul smiled and told me, ‘W e could do the engine for you’ At the time, M otorsport was working on four-valve heads for BM W ’s disappointing five-litre V I2 and were encouraged by the results. “But when they showed me that engine it was too heavy and too big. We were going to use the engine as a semistructural member and I wanted a dry sump and a much higher rev limit o f seven five. ‘W e’ll do a new engine’, Paul said.” It was Rosche who suggested going to six-litres to guarantee 550bhp. Murray agreed but only if the engine could be limited to 600m m in length. “They have this amazing ability to produce w'onderful. free-rew ing, gutsy and reliable engines. The technology is in their blood.” Today, BM W ’s V 12 produces 627bhp and 4701b ft o f torque at 5600rpm with 6 0 per cent o f that — in other words 2821b ft, or more than a Jaguar four-litre six’s maximum torque — at only 1500rpm. “ If you move the throttle more than quarter o f an inch in any gear all hell breaks lose, instantly, even in sixth.” says Murray. “T hat’s when you get the F40 feeling. Yet, I ’d also be happy to drive the FI into London on a wet Friday night. “One o f the early prototypes broke the throttle cable and I drove it 15 miles back to W oking in sixth gear on idle. A t 1OOmph you can hardly feel the throttle is open at all. It’s a true dual purpose supercar.” During this engine developm ent o f course, Murray and his team were also w orking out how to fit three people in ...
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In Hare* 1 9 8 9 . McUren revealed its plans to build the supercar. The engine, packaging and styling had yet to be decided...