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Gordon Murray’s city car crash test

Tiny T.27 electric car passes EEC 40mph crash test with flying colours.

Gordon Murray city car crash test

By Tom Phillips

19th January 2011

Gordon Murray Design is celebrating a crashing victory after its T.27 electric city car impressed in recent testing. The T.27 was subjected to the mandatory EEC frontal impact test, which means driving into a deformable offset barrier at 40mph.

The test was carried out at MIRA, and the T.27 passed with flying colours, showing zero cabin intrusion and behaving almost exactly as predicted in computer simulations. The test also proved that the car’s Formula One-inspired composite monocoque is a huge boost to the car’s ability to withstand a heavy impact.

The T.27 is built using Gordon Murray Design’s iStream manufacturing system, which delivers reduced weight and cost with increased levels of safety.

The development of the T.27, by Gordon Murray Design and Zytek Automotive, has been made possible through a £4.5m investment from the government-backed Technology Strategy Board. With a total cost of £9m, the consortium will develop running prototypes of the vehicle by Spring 2011.

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3 Comments

Design Genius!

Such a smart design! This from the same man who designed the McLaren F1 and Mercedes SLR. I was going to get all patriotic and start spouting about British car design genius - but he was born in Durban, South Africa...

By ajjm65 on 19 January, 2011, 3:40pm

Yeah, and this is only the type approval test. Let's see how it does in the EuroNCAP test! Mind you, it's still a good result for such a short car.

By molebag on 20 January, 2011, 10:07pm

£9 million?

Why on earth do other manufacturers spend £billions on designing a car these days if you can achieve this much with such a small amount of money??

By JamesRiley on 10 March, 2011, 8:20am

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Gordon Murray city car crash test
Gordon Murray city car crash test

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