Earlier this year, during Monterey Car Week, Gordon Murray Automotive launched a new Special Vehicles division. With that launch came two highly limited supercars: The Le Mans GTR and the S1 LM. While both cars are based on GMA’s T.50 road car, the S1 LM wears bodywork very clearly resembling McLaren’s F1 GTR, the car that famously won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995.
The S1 LM’s reveal was met with overly positive press coverage. I absolutely loved it when I laid eyes on the design buck during a preview event in Monterey a few months back. While it doesn’t exactly match up with the F1 GTR, there are elements, like the roof scoop, the door shape, and the slatted rear end, that are very obvious callbacks to the original ’90s race car. In all, I’d say it’s a pleasantly faithful recreation with a handful of welcome modern touches.
The designer of the original McLaren F1 GTR seems to think differently. Peter Stevens, the man responsible for penning the F1’s and the F1 GTR’s exterior, took to Instagram on Wednesday to share his disdain for the S1 LM’s looks, describing the car as “clearly nothing like an F1.” From the post:
It appeared to have been produced on the keyboard of a CAD program by someone wearing boxing gloves. What loos [sic] something like a couple of black planks of wood sspended on skinny little aluminium plates is possibly meant to represent a rear wing. This and a huge clunky looking rear lower diffuser, do not in any way represent the character of a proper McLaren F1 GTR. I would never produce a front air intake as crude and featureless as this S1-LM, nor with such gapping side air intakes.
 
 
A post shared by Peter Stevens (@peterstevensdesign)

These criticisms aren’t directed at Gordon Murray himself—Stevens seems to retain great respect for Murray and what he’s been able to accomplish throughout his career, judging by this post. Nor are they directed at Kevin Richards, chief creative officer for GMA. That’s because neither of these people designed the car. Instead, it was an outsider brought in by the buyer who commissioned the S1 LM. This CarBuzz interview with CEO Phil Lee tells the full story:
While company Chief Creative Officer Kevin Richards penned the Le Mans GTR, a little-known designer named Florian Flatau was the one behind the S1 LM. That’s no slight against Richards, however. “He’s worked with Gordon for 30-plus years,” Lee said. “He knows the way [Gordon] thinks, and they work hand in glove to design the cars.” But when the commissioner of the F1 LM put forth an exterior stylist of their own, GMSV (and more importantly, Murray himself) felt as though the company could successfully work with an outsider on the project. According to Lee, Murray guided Flatau, but gave him leeway nevertheless – “He doesn’t say no, but he tries to coach through the process.”
Stevens quotes the above text in another Instagram post, describing the entire ordeal as “very bizarre.” He doesn’t hold any ill will towards Flatau, though. “Flatau actually turns out to be a decent guy,” Stevens told me via Instagram DM. “He has fairly recently gone freelance and didn’t have much of an option in having to grab the project.” Flatau did not immediately respond when I reached out for comment.
“I do think it was [Gordon Murray Design’s] job to suggest something for the future rather than from the past,” Stevens told me, suggesting the project should not have been a recreation of the F1 GTR, but something totally new. “Or buy him an F1 and update the lighting, brakes, stiffness of the rear of the monocoque, gearbox, and sound system, perhaps even ventilation system,” he added, suggesting GMA should bring an F1 up to modern standards rather than build an entirely new car.
 
 
A post shared by Peter Stevens (@peterstevensdesign)

In that same Instagram post, he theorizes why GMA would build such a car in the first place. Here’s where things get confusing:
I can’t help feeling that making a huge design and tooling investment in an homage is a strange idea. All projects that I know of have a business plan, and that is to make money, not celebrate a more that thirty-year-old project. Why would an automotive company choose to make a tribute to another company’s product? Well, McLaren Automotive has been acquired by CYVN Holdings – an Abu Dhabi-based investment company – which has also taken a non-controlling stake in McLaren Racing. McLaren Automotive is soon to merge with CYVN’s British start-up brand ‘Forseven’, which has been, over the last three years, planning to launch a product “into the luxury car market”. In that time it had a bit of help from Gordon Murray Technologies, which (of course) CYVN owns as well.
Ok, let’s break this down. It’s true that CYVN Holdings, an Abu Dhabi-based investment company, owns a controlling stake in both McLaren and Gordon Murray Technologies. It’s also true that McLaren is merging with Forseven, a British luxury start-up founded last year that’s being bankrolled by CYVN. What any of this has to do with GMA building a tribute car to the GTR, I’m not sure. Companies make retro tributes to old models all the time. Many smaller restomodding companies build cars that resemble vehicles they had no part in designing—think cars like the Kimera EVO37, a mid-engine, twin-charged sports car meant to be a modern recreation of the Lancia 037. Why’s it any different with the S1 LM?
When I asked Stevens about this, he simply said, “With both companies loosing [sic] millions I guess it is just expedience.” He didn’t respond when I asked for further clarification. Financials for GMA are only available up until the end of 2023, where GMA declared a loss of £14,376,506 (around $11.3 million) in the 16-month period prior to filing. But it’s worth noting that it only started deliveries of its first car, the T.50, towards the end of that 16-month timeframe.
It’s tough to turn a profit as a new car company, even when you’re making central-seat, V12-powered supercars. The Five S1 LMs, which are all being bought by the same person, are rumored to cost $10 million each, meaning a nice infusion of cash for GMA. I suspect Stevens is just a bit miffed GMA is leaning on his past design to cash in on this commission rather than designing something new.
While I understand Stevens’ frustration, it’s tough to fault GMA. The whole company is held up by Gordon Murray’s legendary status as the creator of the original F1. So if any brand is going to build a proper homage, it’s this one. If I had $50 million to blow on a custom car, I’d probably order up something very similar to the S1 LM. And I probably wouldn’t trust any other company to do it.
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