Not really surprising, is it?

David Ruddick , that’s great, it took me 30 years to realise that, I was more interested on the drivers when Gordon Murray was at his peak.

@@drazenbudis7881 In retrospect no. But the drivers are the ones who were always out front. And there were a few like Senna who were extraordinary men on any number of levels.

maneki9neko , so true.

Facts

Such an accurate depiction of reality

Steve Nichols and his team designed the MP4/4 as an evolution of the MP4/3, taking advantage of the much smaller Honda engine and Tilton clutch. Gordon did have some input on the gearbox, though he didn't design that either.

Indeed.

He's a thief more like, stole credit for the work of others

Well Gordon and Adrian are high performance supercar designers and they have an uncompromising vision for their cars. Gordon Murray was very detailed about the challenges of electric cars -- the elephants in the room are the energy density, lifecycle costs and other environmental concerns of recycling batteries and no one has ever considered that it costs much more energy to manufacture a car than run one (and it costs very little to run an electric car). The infrastructure is in fact one of the easier problems to solve now. These guys are engineers and they know the art of nuance and getting the comprehensive picture to a T. We don't have the answers to those just yet. Most Tesla fan boys in comparison have lots of emotion and zero awareness - Greta Thunberg is one of the better ones honestly. Not saying that manufacturers all over the world aren't trying, and that Tesla is the only one who's survived the financial war and near extinction, but the public perception towards electric cars is still almost all sentiment. However, I am positive that we do have very smart minds out there who will address these challenges. GM for one has worked on a technology to recycle carbon fiber and his T25 city car and T27 electric car (and now the autonomous pod) as a concept is a small and yet nimble, practical and affordable vehicle. But he's so far ahead of the times he won't be appreciated for at least another generation. You and I know we can't discuss any of this with fanboys. They'll just start shouting "Shut up cause you're a hater or you're jealous or you support Trump." Not sure what they've actually done to help either.

@@srinitaaigaura Brilliant answer. My take is that if we have just listened more to the engineers, we wouldnt have the problems we face now. It was all figured out a long time ago but no one wants to hear that. Smaller and more efficiant instead of bigger and heavier. I think this is what people like GM hate. The massive weight of the batteries is ridiculous and the fact that producing bigger heavier cars, even if they are electric, is in no way green. I guess this is obvious to the engineers but in the eyes of the regulations, zero emission equals completely clean. And OEMs are just fine with the latter.

@@kristisrb unfortunately regulations are simply not good enough; we'll have to get to a point where the overall footprint of the vehicle will need to be considered, as opposed to the emissions alone. Larger vehicles (trucks, SUVs) can sell for more money and represent a segment that is massively appealing to the public for a variety of reasons, at least in some countries (North America as a whole is a great example). Unfortunately marketing and profit will always outweigh Engineering feedback - at least that's what I experience first hand on a daily basis.

Except he takes credit for cars like the MP4/4 and MP4/5 he never did any work on.

@@MartiniPinball Never any work on MP4/4?

​@@drazenbudis7881 Exceedingly little. Steve Nichols and his team designed the MP4/4 - as an evolution of the MP4/3, taking advantage of the much smaller Honda engine and Tilton clutch. Gordon did have some input on the gearbox, though he didn't design that either.

🤔🤔

when have williams had a problem with south americans? they raced Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna, took a championship with Nelson.

@@theant9821 Patrick Head has admitted that they preferred / favored anglosaxons British drivers on some interviews. Piquet's attitude was to "fight team politics" with Mansell cause of this, British team with British driver the are going to prefer the British pilots. Piquet went to talk with Frank Williams while he was in ICU after his life changing accident in order to be treated as preferred pilot. I think the attitude evolved over time too. Specially after the lost title for Reutemann in 1981. Frank Dernie speaks about this too. The wanted to favor Mansell but he was an asshole he he. Watch the Williams documentary.

Colin Chapman will always be no.1 for motorsport innovation. But Chapman went to the extreme for lightness, and willing to push the limit in pursuit of lightness. "any fool can build a bridge that wont fall down, it takes a great engineer to build a bridge that just wont fall down" Colin Chapman and until the bridge falls you don`t know how strong it needed to be. If you drove a Lotus, you accepted this risk in pursuit of the last little bit of speed that other teams weren't willing to look for. Plus the entire team ideology if you like at lotus was chasing innovation, not so much chasing refinement. The sport has become a lot more refinement based since the turbo era ended, all the big leaps forward happened before 1989. there are fewer gaps in the rule book to exploit than there once were, hence why the cars are all so similar these days.

What the hell are you talking about ?

@@gunnerlangy 8 months too late for me to explain

Murray's businesses would not have survived if he were not superb at marketing. In this instance the reason may be more basic than he suggests. Most of the world drives on the left hand side of the road, and has the shifter on the right. That is the majority of the market. The car is a 'driver's car' so he justifies the decision in terms of the 'driver'. The market force, however, is huge.

@@maneki9neko most probably, even rhd racers (most old Le Mans cars, driver next to pit garage and on inside of the clockwise circuit) usually have right hand shift, i assumed because most drivers would be most familiar with it.

I can see the right hand steering argument for road cars where gear changes are very easy, but a race box takes a precision and feel for a clean change that is much easier with your dominant hand.

how was Senna involved? I know he had input in the NSX, but not the F1

The same reason I was never mentioned.

After hearing the truth from Steve Nichols, we know now that the McLaren MP4/4 is not derived from the failed Brabham BT55 and that Murray worked at McLaren in a directorship position rather than as a technical director.

Yep. He’s dined off the mp4/4 for years. It just shows how if you align yourself with the right people in F1, you are protected. This was for many years, ecclestone. Don’t forget Murray worked for brabham, and if you upset Murray, and by extension Mr E, you would never again set foot in an F1 paddock. Now F1’s been sold it’s open season, the new owners don’t care about who did what 35 years ago. All the people he’s pissed off are out for revenge

Murray was self taught and one of a kind. For the rest of us, in the UK and the US, the investment in education has declined enormously. We gave a bunch of billionaires tax cuts, and they in turn buy the governance that they want. The grants that sent me to elite engineering schools such that I was able to graduate without a penny of debt are much diminished, and the competition for them is huge.

@@maneki9neko A lot of people wanting to change the world are just fanboys only good for shouting angrily in the streets and getting offended these days. Sad but true.

Santa is fake Murray is real

I am surprised McLaren never clarifies / corrects his claim publicly

See the new pod cast on Steve Nichols very interesting (26:12:21)

You clearly don't understand the difference between TD and Designer. MP4/4 was Murray's concept. End of.

TD and Design are very different concepts , try getting your puny brain to grasp that idea. Your bigotry and will to write these comments on KZfaq for Mr. Murray clearly shows that not only you cannot accept that some people are just better at something but also a deep hatred for those who do exceptionally well in different areas . Please do not let that burrow into your thoughts and just sleep it off. Gordon Murray has , is and will be making true driver focused cars as long as he lives and his team I am sure will live up to his legacy . Plus he was amazing as TD in F1 as long as he did it .

Murray has himself mentioned that when he arrived at McLaren he did not have time to contribute to the mp4/4 as developement had already begun. So there is no possibility it could be anything to do with murrays ideas (concept has alredy been locked at that point.) Mp4/4 main characteristics are _very_ similar to the mp4/3 so there is a clear path on design evolve from it supported by rule change mandatoring to have driver feet behind front axle and smaller fuel tank and also tag -> Honda change. The technical director role is much more head of department in a company than actual design ideas. There may be of course discussions on ideas and such, but lead designer is always the guy who makes the decisions and head of department (technical director in this case) approves the projects operations and their funding based on the ideas and designs usefulness. So Steve Nichols and the rest of the team completely deserves all the praises for the cars success and Murray deserves a pat on the back letting the team follow the original ideas and do their magic and not messingin with it.

South African Gordon Murray has English teeth?

. Where is the battery material coming from...at an increased rate everyday if it ever kicks in? . There will never be an infrastructure to support it, its just a money grab They would be better off banning cruise ships and shitty cheap flights that put 30K planes a day in the sky, neither of which I use...fkn nutters that think this electric junk is an answer need to wake up

Budget Tracktool Club , oh ,that’s all right then.