Gordon Murray, Shell to make new city car concept

Gordon Murray has partnered with oil major Shell and former Honda F1 engine designer Osamu Goto to create a new city car concept that has been officially dubbed as Project M. The concept is set to debut in November and aims to inspire fresh thinking about simple, practical, global city cars.

Project M has been described by the three partners as “an ultra-compact, efficient car for city use, based around the internal combustion engine”. This will become the second project jointly developed by the three parties, with the last one being Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost’s 1988 Mclaren-Honda MP4/4 F1 cars.

It has been known from a recently issued mechanical layout plan, that the Project M will retain the T25 city car concept’s ultra compact, three seat, rear engine layout. The Project M is also expected to feature Gordon Murray’s iStream design and manufacturing process which employs a simply fabricated tubular steel frame with strategically bonded-in composite panels to deliver low weight and immense strength.

No engine details are available as yet, but it seems likely that Osamu Goto’s engine design firm, Geo Technology will build the powertrain.

The three partners have stated that the Project M is not destined for production.

Comments

2018 Lamborghini Urus India review, test drive

On first introduction, it’s a recipe for intimidation. It’s claimed to be the fastest SUV in the world (0-100kph in 3.6sec and a top speed of 305kph puts it nearly in supercar territory), and it’s made by Lamborghini – creator of some of the most savage vehicles on the market. Things – as with any Lamborghini, for that matter – would be a lot less daunting if we were driving on a smooth European country road, a wide motorway, or even a race track. But today we’re driving the Urus on a narrow ghat road, as well as through some heavy Pune traffic. Perhaps the intention was to demonstrate that this is the first Lamborghini ever to go on sale in India that truly works in our conditions – but still, I doubt they accounted for rush hour. It’s requisitely mad to look at, employing as many ‘sporty’ design tropes to an SUV body style as possible – the only thing missing is a massive wing on the back; and somehow, it works. It’s ...

Skoda Vision RS concept previews new hatchback

Skoda has set the stage for its forthcoming Volkswagen Golf and Ford Focus rival with the Vision RS, a concept car that features a performance plug-in hybrid (PHEV) powertrain. Under the sporty details and concept flourishes, the Vision RS bears a close resemblance to the Rapid hatchback that will be introduced next year. The fact that it has been previewed in vRS form, complete with 245hp PHEV powertrain, shows how much further upmarket the new Rapid will go compared with the current value-led model. Skoda product marketing chief Björn Kroll said: “The current Rapid is too low-market. For this one, we have tried to balance it out.” Skoda will drop the slow-selling liftback version and concentrate on the Spaceback hatch for the new Rapid. At 4,356mm, the concept is just over 50mm longer than the current Rapid, and it has a 440-litre boot that's up by 25 litres. The concept retains some of the current Rapid’s des...

What to avoid during a car service

When it comes to getting their cars serviced at authorised outlets, owners usually go the whole hog. They want their cars coming out of service centres looking brand new, and are willing to pay for it. But do service centres take undue advantage of this? Yes, they do. Servicing may involve changing certain parts and oils after a set interval, but service centres will almost always try to plug in a few extras using technical jargon that a layman may not really understand. Certain processes are completely unnecessary, and customers end up paying extra as they are not aware of what's important and what's not. Also, most of the times, the service associate will throw you a hard sales pitch, and it's not always done with your best interests in mind. So what exactly are the things you don’t really need and should avoid? Engine flushing Flushing an engine simply means cleaning the impure oil and gunk that ...

Automobilestillnow

Search This Blog