Gordon Murray has never been one to repeat himself, yet his latest creation feels like a full-circle moment. At The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering 2025, the celebrated designer and founder of Gordon Murray Special Vehicles lifted the curtain on the S1 LM, a car built to honor the McLaren F1’s iconic 1995 Le Mans victory while pushing his design philosophy to its most ambitious point yet.
A New Chapter in an Extraordinary Legacy
Murray’s career needs little introduction. His work helped secure three consecutive Formula One Constructors’ and Drivers’ Championships for McLaren from 1988 to 1990. When he pivoted to road cars, he delivered the McLaren F1, still widely regarded as one of the greatest performance cars ever made.
Three decades later, that spirit resurfaces in the S1 LM, the first commissioned project under Gordon Murray Special Vehicles, a division created in 2024 to take his seven principles, lightness, purity, beauty, and engineering art, among them, to an even more exclusive stratosphere.
A Sculptural Evolution, Not a Replica
The S1 LM isn’t a remake of the McLaren F1 LM. It’s a re-imagining. With only five units to be built, the car embraces a sleeker, more sculpted silhouette. The coke-bottle profile tightens the body, the fenders grow wider, and the visual tension across the carbon surfaces gives the car a lighter, more aggressive posture.
To get there, the T.50 platform became only a starting point. Engineers removed the central spine, lowered the monocoque, reworked the roofline, and reinforced the chassis to achieve a form that mirrors the original LM’s proportions without mimicking them.
A V-12 for the Ages
At the core sits a bespoke 4.3-liter Cosworth V-12, delivering more than 700 horsepower and revving to 12,100 rpm. Eighty-one percent of its torque arrives at just 2,500 rpm, giving the car instant response. Lightweight pistons, titanium internals, dry-sump lubrication, and a four-pipe Inconel exhaust wrapped in gold heat shielding make this engine a technical showpiece as much as a performance one.
A six-speed manual transmission, no paddles, no hybrid assistance, cements Murray’s crusade for mechanical purity. The shift action has been completely reengineered to deliver ultra-short, rifle-like throws.
Lightness as Obsession
Weight savings sit at the heart of the S1 LM. Body panels just 0.6 millimeters thick, exposed Naked Polish Carbon Fiber sections, redesigned controls, ultra-light forged wheels, and even polycarbonate ticket windows all contribute to a ruthless pursuit of minimal mass.
Inside, the details border on art. The shift knob holds a rare quartz crystal, cut and polished into a gem-like droplet. The driver binnacle sits on a 3D-printed hollow alloy mount, keeping the structure featherlight while visually striking.
An Ownership Experience Unlike Anything Else
The first of the five cars is now offered to collectors, but “ownership” barely describes what’s on the table. The winning bidder will collaborate directly with Gordon Murray and Dario Franchitti during final development drives, witness wind-tunnel testing, and help fine-tune the car’s performance. They’ll also receive a 500-page monograph filled with sketches and notes from Murray’s personal notebook.
For Murray, who worked on the S1 LM while undergoing cancer treatment, the project carries personal weight. Now in remission, he calls it a symbol of resilience. And for its future owners, it promises something rare in the hypercar world: not just a machine, but a deeply human story brought to life in carbon, titanium, and sound.
