Formula One race car designer Gordon Murray has provided a sneak peek of his soon to be unveiled T25 city car. The preview comes on the heels of the announcement that Murray is seeking to offer the car to franchisees this week.
According to Murray, "Most of our potential clients are large, successful businesses with strong brands, but only a minority are established car manufacturers." Although he failed to provide the names of the carmakers that have expressed interest, it does make one wonder which automakers are considering putting the vehicle into production.
The three-seat T25 was conceived at Gordon Murray's design studio in England and it features a rear mounted three-cylinder petrol engine. In terms of size, no specifics were released but it is supposed to be shorter and narrower than potential rivals such as the Smart ForTwo and Toyota's iQ. More importantly, the T25 is expected to offer greater fuel economy and a larger load capacity than both of them. Although a lot of details are still up in the air, a £5-10k price tag has been hinted at in the past which means the T25 has the potential to be a strong contender in its segment.
Murray considers traditional car production to be wasteful, so he based his product plan around the iStream method that eliminates the use of large stamped metal parts which cuts costs and allows for greater production flexibility. The end result means that vehicle's produced using this method only require about 20% of the factory space that normal car production takes up.
[UPDATE] Press release added 02.27.2009
