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Originally Posted by MalkaJB
Oh you do, do you? And when will that be...next time Gordon happens to be in the neighborhood? Perhaps sometime in the near future, you will run into him again at the local Applebees. 
Maybe while you do that, I'll give the Sultan a ring and find out what he has to say about the matter at hand. 
All joking aside, what sort of contact info did Mr. Murray give you? |
Gordon gave me his business card with his address and fax number. Once he gets established with an email address he said he would pass that along to me as well. I gave him my card too, along with instructions on how to find this website. He seemed keenly interested in the content I had collected and seemed interested in the McLarenFreak.com website that tvrfreak and I told him F1 monster is developing to celebrate the car.
I should back track a little and explain that Gordon didn't strike me as the most computer/web-savvy guy around. He had heard about some of the things circulating the net on the F1 via his son, but I don't think he has been here for a first hand look yet.
My initial conversation with him was about 15 minutes long and happened right as I walked into the Sculpture Garden where the car show was being held. I found him standing by himself looking at a concept car that was on display and thought I would seize the opportunity to introduce myself when he wasn't busy talking to other people.
I was hoping that he might have at least heard about what we have going here, or even be familiar with my screenname. In fact there have been times in the past where I thought he was one of our participants, but apparently that isn't the case. I went ahead and explained the back story to give him an idea of my level of interest.
We talked a bit about his F1, and apparently that old Jag did actually back into the nose of XP3 and did damage to the paint during the Dunhill event, so it wasn't just exhaust spray we saw in the photos.
He said that David Clark's GTR #06R had been damaged in the nose when he allowed someone else to take the wheel but he wasn't certain what they hit.
I seized the opportunity to ask him if he knew what had happened to XP2, since it's the only F1 prototype that the existence of remained in question. He was certain that it had been crushed sometime after the MIRA crash test which makes XP3 now the earliest remaining F1 in existence. He was curious where XP4 had ended up since I stated that the others were accounted for so I mentioned the New Zealander 'Bhatnagar' which was a name that seemed familiar to Gordon, and then told him that the car had come to the USA in Aug 2000 and that it's new owner was Larry Blair. He hadn't heard that yet.
I talked a little about the Light Car Company Rocket which is another car that I love. We talked about Jay driving his own Rocket around L.A. which Gordon thought was a bit insane. I asked if he knew whether Jay was bringing his McLaren to the show as I didn't see it anywhere on the lawn and he told me that he believed he was. I asked him if he would mind autographing a LCC Rocket brochure that was still down in my car and he said he hadn't seen one of those in several years and would be glad to. I mentioned that I had brought my laptop (also still in the car) and asked if he'd be interested in taking a look at some of my digital collection later, and he said he wouldn't mind. I'm not really sure he knew what he was volunteering for with that one though.
At that point I excused myself, not wanting to be too much of a pest and drive the man nuts in the first hour. Then I had to call my mom to tell her what had just happened.
I have to admit, going into this I wasn't really sure what kind of response to expect from Gordon. I've heard some say he was very eccentric, still others have claimed that he was cold and arrogant, and in a case like Thorst mentions, not very personable. I found all those things to be false in my encounter - he was very open, thoughtful and eloquent (as one would expect) but he was also humble and didn't come off as superior in anyway. He made a real effort to set aside the time at the end of the day with tvrfreak and I which he certainly didn't have to do. This may sound quite cliche, but it was truly an honor to be in his presence and listen to him speak.
After his speech I had to take a shuttle down to my car to get my laptop case and tvrfreak waited inside the show - thankfully keeping track of Gordon when I was gone. When I got back Jay had left in the McLaren, but Gordon was still there and was headed for the hosptality tent to get some refreshments. Once he saw us in there he came over and suggested a table closer to the fan (it was very hot) and then once I had my laptop set up he came and sat with us. I began flipping through different folders showing him things and asking a few questions here and there. I'm not bragging here, but there were more than a few times when Gordon stated that we clearly knew more about the cars than he did now and that he couldn't really help us with the answers. I don't find that too surprising really, given that he has been totally immersed in the development of the SLR since ~1999. Now that he has left McLaren he has even less exposure to the cars.
Now, if you asked him a question about the development process of the F1, or why they went one direction over another I am quite certain that there is no one on the planet who could give a more accurate answer, but if you ask him who owns (for example) chassis #011 now, he really can't be much help since he hasn't worked on that side of the business in quite some time. I showed him my folder of photos of #040 - the blue car with the high mirrors and black wheels - and I would have thought that a unique looking F1 like that one would have been familiar to him, but he had never seen it. I showed him the folder with the silver F1 that wears the high downforce package and a very unique set of headlights and he wasn't sure which car it was or why the design change had been made.
Like the rest of you I was really hoping and expecting that Gordon would be the holy grail of McLaren info - a walking encyclopedia that could put me to shame in every respect, but it just wasn't the case. I don't really think he has any need to apologize for that either, as he has not spent the last ~3 years devoted to doing what I do. I'm sure if he wanted the answers he could easily attain them, but it just has not been a priority for him like it has for me and many of the others here. He said that most of the original owners would be familiar to him as he had a hand in the sale of almost every car, but that he wasn't aware of too many of the new owners. He did recall Dan Kennedy's #038 with all its tech-gizmos. Interestingly, he wasn't aware of #011 and #073 having been sold by the Ojjeh brothers through those two Christies Auctions - that kind of caught me by surprise given that Mansour was one of the four principals in getting the McLaren Cars company and the F1 project off the gound back in 1988.
We had talked earlier in the day about his own personal collection of F1 memorabilia. He said he has a decent set of the F1 diecasts that were produced and that he had tried to keep one of every piece of literature that was published on the F1. He told me that during his Formula One years he hadn't kept a thing - no team apparel, no race programs, nothing really - he said there was just no time to think about that stuff. With the F1 though, he wanted to be sure he would have things to look back on. I'm betting his physical library on the F1 is way cooler than mine.
I started showing him some of the items that have come up on Ebay in recent years like the F1 replica made of marble, the one in pewter, the wheel nut from XP3's record run at Nardo, and finally the F1 pedal set that sold for just over $1000. He said that particular person had gotten an amazing deal as he recalled the pedal set had cost quite a bit more to produce for the car than what was paid. He seemed rather surprised there was that sort of market developing behind F1 parts and memorabilia. I also showed him some photos of the full scale McLaren replicas that have come onto the scene recently, including the very awkward looking one that was listed on Ebay recently which gave him a good laugh. He seemed a bit perturbed after looking at the one from DDRmotorsport - being that it's nearly a carbon copy of the F1 in the styling department.
Intermixed in all of this, Jerry Weigert of Vector fame had come by to discuss Gordon's future company/project, which includes a supercar design followed by a very unique citycar that he feels will revolutionize the market. In my teenage years I had been a big fan of Vector and had even met Mr Weigert at the '91 or '92 LA Auto Show when they had 5 or 6 W8's on display - I think I was about 15 at the time. Sitting at a table with him and Gordon was one of those surreal moments where you have to pinch yourself because you think you might be dreaming.
Once he had left we spent some time discussing Gordon's magazine contributions, I finally found out that they built a total of 55 LCC Rockets, and I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that tvrfreak and I made a new friend named Gordon Murray. It was a very special day for the both of us - the email that tvrfreak sent me that evening echoed a lot of the same thoughts about what a great day it had been - to borrow his words "we were truly in the shadow of greatness today".
>8^)
ER