It’s an icy morning in Mayfair and as we slowly battle through the stop-start traffic towards our destination on the other side of the city, the needles on the oil and water temperature gauges of the Lancia 2000 HF Coupé in which we’re travelling are reassuringly central. Robin Mann, who has spent the last six years restoring the handsome little saloon, can hardly believe his eyes.
Here it is: the first official image of Gordon Murray’s T.50, the spiritual heir to the legendary McLaren F1. You can certainly see shades of the ‘Big Mac’ in the sleek coupé, not least in the split side windows and the slightly raised spine. What the F1 didn’t have that the T.50 does, however, is a 400mm airflow-regulating fan dominating its backside. The feature, which Murray pioneered on the Brabham BT46B Formula 1 car back in the 1980s, will reportedly make the T.50 the most aerodynamically advanced road car of all time.