Gordon Murray Builds His Own Le Mans Memorial in Monterey

Professor Gordon Murray never misses a chance to insist that his cars are “timeless, beautiful, and embodiments of pure engineering.” Monterey Car Week 2025 gave him just the right stage, as his new subsidiary, Gordon Murray Special Vehicles, unveiled two machines designed as tributes to Le Mans.

The first, the S1 LM, is a five-car commission built around a new 4.3-liter V12 that revs to 12,100 rpm and sings through four centrally mounted exhausts wrapped in golden heat shielding. It sounds more like a bespoke boutique instrument than a mass-produced supercar. Lightweight, sharpened by purposeful aerodynamics, and centered on a fighter jet–like cabin with its single-seat layout, the S1 LM reprises the “back to the roots” rhetoric Murray has already used for the T.50, only this time the focus is squarely on the 1995 Le Mans victory.

The second, the Le Mans GTR, is a run of 24 cars—each one symbolizing an hour of the race. Its inspiration borrows freely from endurance icons such as the Porsche 917, Matra MS660, and Alfa Romeo Tipo 33. The result is a modern longtail promising greater downforce than the T.50, though without the famous fan. All examples are already spoken for, their prices undisclosed, their buyers loyal collectors who are acquiring not so much cars as curated stories.

None of it is accidental. The 1995 Le Mans triumph has, three decades on, been recast as two ultra-expensive souvenirs, marketed under banners of “timeless beauty” and “pure engineering principles.” Murray still speaks romantically of enduring values, but Monterey made clear a harder truth: his creations today are less about progressive technology and more about exclusive relics.