Gordon Murray invests £50m in new global headquarters

Surrey site to house engineering, marketing, sales and servicing divisions; will produce secretive next model

The Gordon Murray Group is investing £50 million in setting up a new global headquarters in Windlesham, Surrey as it gears up to put its T50 hypercar into production in January 2022.

Based around a distinctive atom-shaped building once owned by gas giant BOC, the 130,000sq ft centre will house the firm's design, engineering, research and development, sales, marketing and heritage divisions. The original building will remain, as will the surrounding 54 acres of parkland. 

The campus will be built in three phases. The first will result in the completion of the sales, manufacturing and heritage facilities, as well as a purpose-built test road for prototypes by the end of 2022. The second phase will take place in 2023, with the engineering centre being developed. And the final phase will bring new R&D and T50 servicing facilities to the site by the end of 2024.

It's anticipated that the new headquarters will create 100 new jobs across various sectors within the next three years. The buildings, said founder Gordon Murray, will be practical and energy-efficient but won't be "showy". 

The Windlesham facility is just seven miles from the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, where the Murray-designed F1 supercar entered production in 1992. 

The new £2.8m T50 supercar and and its track-only T50s sibling will still be built at the firm's existing site in nearby Dunsfold, but a secretive third model - dubbed Project 2 – will be produced at Windlesham.

Most of the 100 T50s set to be built have been sold, while Murray claims that around half of the 25 planned track versions have been accounted for during the pre-sale period. 

Murray said "progress on the T50 is good," with the first prototype - named XP1, like the first prototype of its McLaren F1 inspiration - around 50% complete and the monocoque for the second secured. A total of 11 prototypes will be built before customer cars hit the production line. 

Engine development work is currently under way, using an Ultima chassis that has been adapted to house the T50's Cosworth-developed 3.9-litre V12. Early tests suggest the final car will actually weigh less than the brand's 890kg target while pushing out slightly more power than the initially claimed 650bhp. 

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