The Gordon Murray of today

is a mature edition of the hippie you often see in old F1 pit-lane photos: wild

hair, moustache, worse shirts than mine. He is

the man who designed for Brabham and McLaren and went on to conceive the F1

supercar, as well as the ‘McMerc’ SLR and the LCC Rocket. He is a workaholic,

card-carrying engineering evangelist, tinged, as is usual, with a hint of

madness.

He likes Bob Dylan, for example, and soap-box racing. He’s inexplicably fond of jukeboxes and seems to harbour

some deep-rooted phobia about cockroaches, which he mentions several times

during our discussions.

Words: James May

Pictures: Justin Leighton

This article originally appeared in the June 2012 edition of Top Gear magazine