The Gordon Murray S1 Is Built on Subtraction, Not Addition

The Gordon Murray S1 is built on subtraction, not addition. Revealed at The Quail during Monterey Car Week, the new supercar takes the S1 LM’s race-derived platform and strips away its large fixed rear wing, long front splitter, and deep side skirts, replacing extreme downforce with mechanical grip and a cleaner, more classically proportioned silhouette.

What Gordon Murray Removed From the S1 LM to Build the Gordon Murray S1

The S1 LM was conceived as the most intense, race-inspired celebration of Murray’s 1995 Le Mans 24 Hours victory, and every exterior body panel on the S1 is newly designed to move away from that brief. A new active rear aero system replaces the fixed wing, adapting to high-speed stability and braking demands rather than chasing maximum downforce at all times.

The Gordon Murray S1 retains the S1 LM’s width, track, and lightweight suspension architecture, but ride height climbs 10mm and the damping has been retuned for comfort — a genuine shift toward long-distance usability without touching the fundamental hardware that gives the car its steering precision and feedback.

The Engine and Gearbox Behind the Gordon Murray S1

At the center of the S1 is a bespoke 4.2-liter naturally aspirated Cosworth V12 producing up to 690 PS and revving to 12,100 RPM, built with competition-spec internals including silicon carbide-coated pistons, titanium valves and connecting rods, and dry-sump lubrication. The more telling number is the torque curve: 81% of the S1’s roughly 500 Nm is available from just 2,500 RPM, a deliberately broader spread than a track-focused engine would need.

That torque figure is the real story here — a high-revving, low-inertia V12 that still delivers most of its pull low in the rev range is a genuinely difficult engineering balance, not a marketing footnote. The engine pairs with a six-speed manual gearbox featuring a touring sixth gear as standard, with new straighter cable routing aimed at preserving what Murray’s team calls a “rifle-bolt shift feel.”

Professor Gordon Murray framed the car as proof that stripping away the S1 LM’s extremes reveals something underneath worth keeping: “It has the same intensity, response, and engineering integrity, but has been tuned for a different purpose… This is a car you could drive along the coast from Los Angeles to Monterey in real comfort, still enjoying every gearshift, every corner, and every note of the V12 when the road opens up.”

What makes that claim credible rather than just brand copy is the weight target: Murray’s team is aiming for a curb weight below the T.50’s despite a more luxurious cabin, an upgraded sound system, and added acoustic insulation. Holding a weight line that tight while adding comfort features is the kind of tradeoff most manufacturers quietly lose.

Limited to 64 individually commissioned cars, the Gordon Murray S1 arrives alongside a broader shift already visible elsewhere this Monterey Car Week — the Hennessey Blackbird made a similar bet on manual gearboxes and analog engagement over raw spec-sheet numbers. Whether that reflects genuine demand or just a moment of nostalgia before electrification fully takes over the segment is the more interesting question the S1 raises than anything on its own spec sheet.

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