Gordon Murray, designer of the truly insane McLaren F1, swept the board at the RAC Future Car Challenge this Saturday — but for something much more sensible. It’s the 1,500lbs T.27 EV, the little wonder in the picture above, which just carried two people the 57.13 miles from Brighton to London on just 64p ($1.20) of electricity. Compared to a car that burns oil, that would be the equivalent of getting 350MPG. It’s believed the T.27 can easily make 100 miles on a single four-hour charge and scooped eleven awards on the day, including most efficient and best EV.

The T.27, which competed against more than 65 entries including the latest technology from 11 major car manufacturers, won ‘Most Energy Efficient Small Car (Prototype)’, ‘Best Overall Pure Electric Vehicle’ and ‘Best Overall Entry – RAC Future Car Challenge Winner.’

The vehicle covered the 91.94 km (57.13 miles) from Brighton to London carrying two occupants inside the allocated time, using energy equivalent to 350 miles per gallon (or 0.81 litres per 100 km) and with emission totalling only 37 gm CO2/km. On a full charge, taking only four hours, the T.27 can do more than 160 km.

The design is the latest vehicle to use Gordon Murray Design’s innovative iStream manufacturing process, which the company says sets new standards in weight, footprint, small car dynamics, safety, packaging and efficiency whilst addressing full lifecycle CO2 emissions, congestion, parking and low cost motoring.

iStream, the company says, is F1 technology for the everyday motorist, delivering benefits from ‘light-weighting’ along with high levels of safety – GMD recently completed a structural durability test which showed the T.27’s iStream chassis to be up to 60 times more durable than a standard steel structure.

“This win represents a huge step forward in our race to reduce automotive energy consumption and emissions. This year’s success, in combination with last year’s win with our petrol powered T.25, awarded ‘Most Economic Small Passenger ICE Vehicle’ and ‘Most Economic and Environment Friendly Small Passenger ICE Vehicle,’ proves absolutely that lightweight is our most powerful tool for solving our energy problems,” Gordon Murray said.

SOURCE via Gordon Murray Design