Some of them, though, have very nice engines. As does the T50. It would be remiss of me not to mention the bespoke 4.0-litre V12, because it sounds so very, very good.
“The carbonfibre airbox is basically tuned to give a resonance based on throttle angle, and the noise that we experience is all linked to throttle angle,” says Franchitti.
“That’s one of the things Gordon learned from the McLaren F1, whose induction noise is second to none. It’s more difficult with a smaller displacement engine [the F1’s BMW-sourced V12 displaced 6.1 litres], but we all knew when we had got it.”
Other than the compliance, sound and low inertia, what strikes me about the T50 is how Franchitti can pick a line, even on these roads, owing to the car’s relatively modest width of 1850mm. The F1’s footprint is similar, and I wonder aloud if a driver teleported from one to the other, knowing nothing of the lineage, would notice that the two had come from the same hand.
“I think in seating position and in ethos, yes, but it drives completely differently. It’s not a subtle difference,” answers Franchitti. “One of the memories I think I will keep for the rest of my life is that Gordon was in this very car and I was in an F1, and I was chasing him down a mountainside. I was going as hard as I could in an F1 to keep up with him, and I was relieved to get out of it at the end. You realise how things have moved on in 30 years.”
That drive was part of what sealed it for Franchitti as a serial special car owner and driver: he had to have a T50. Except that, by that time, they were all spoken for.“I’ve had to persuade the big man to sell me a prototype,” he says.
Delaying the order is not a mistake he has repeated with the upcoming T33.
A car fan looking beyond the fan car
GMG CEO Phillip Lee belongs to an extremely rare group of people in the car creation chain: he’s a bean-counter who loves cars. Lee trained as an accountant and joined a global accountancy group early on but soon transferred to cars and worked at restructuring and improving businesses in China, Europe, the US and South America.
