In this exclusive interview, former Formula 1 designer Gordon Murray discusses his innovative iStream manufacturing process, industrialised housing and supercar dreams
Gordon Murray’s ten-year-old smart Roadster sits in pride of place outside Gordon Murray Design (GMD) in Shalford, Surrey. The head of the company, famous for designing and building the McLaren F1 road car muses that he has never been able to buy anything better, in terms of driving experience and relatively low cost. But all that could now change, thanks to Gordon Murray Designs’ unprecedented new iStream manufacturing process.
The automotive industry has always been evolutionary, but iStream really is a revolutionary process. “We still make cars today exactly the same way, yet we’ve got a lot more automation and efficiencies but we still, fundamentally, get a sheet of steel, stamp some panels, weld them together, paint them, put the bits on and that’s your motor car,” says Murray. “So this is very disruptive technology. It’s tearing up the rule book and starting again.”
At the 2013 Toyko Motor Show, after months of speculation, the first company went public about its partnership with GMD and its plans to utilise iStream. That company was Yamaha. Not traditionally associated with the passenger car industry, Yamaha presented its new Motiv.e city car alongside images of seven other potential vehicles and the first look at the iStream process, which had until that point only been shown under non-disclosure agreement to potential customers.
Gordon Murray has been working on iStream since his days at McLaren. “I set myself a task while I was still at McLaren of coming up with a composite system of materials and a way of industrialising that and fixing the point loads to it, to achieve the two main advantages, which were to reduce weight and reduce capital investment.” Most of Murray’s McLaren team subsequently joined him at GMD, which he describes as, “Really just the same team with a different name on the door.”
There are a number of direct and indirect benefits of the iStream manufacturing process compared to the traditional method of metal-stamping – the first of which is weight. Generally, OEMs save weight by adding more money, switching from steel to aluminium, magnesium casting or carbon fibre – all very expensive options. iStream, however, employs a separate assembly process: major components, the powertrain, wiring harnesses, brakes and suspension can be directly fitted onto the chassis before the pre-painted body panels are fitted near the end of manufacturing.
Flexibility
iStream uses manipulated tubes and a monocoque panel which are both low cost, but also allow flexibility. “If you want to plan to make a car in three different lengths or two different widths, it’s largely just rewriting software,” says Murray, “because the honeycomb panels are very stiff and stable, we can create great big openings in the structure, which means that we can build one motor car that will take several powertrains; with stamped steel it’s very difficult to do that. Normally a hybrid car and a petrol car are two different architectures.”
A side advantage of iStream is durability. Murray explains, “With a continuously bonded structure like iStream, you have something that’s much more durable. So, not only will it not start rattling and squeaking, but it will retain its crash-ability for much longer into its life.”
The vehicle is therefore much safer and “you get a much stronger, stiffer vehicle. Or safety cell, like a racing car. I’d like to see many more cars out there being safer and more efficient,” says Murray. The structure also offers other perks such as the reduction of vibration and harshness, and a structure which is “self-damping”.
One limitation of the iStream process is capacity. While “a typical iStream model is 30,000 to around 120,000 a year,” if GMD was approached by someone who wanted to mass produce 400,000 low-cost vehicles a year, but was not necessarily interested in weight-saving, “you wouldn’t entertain iStream.” Yet there is also a limitation at the other end of the scale. Murray suggests that if someone was making less than 10,000 vehicles, it would be easier to hand-make, “like the specialist sports car companies do. But those are very expensive products.”
Initially GMD perceived problems with manufacturing larger vehicles such as B- and C-segment cars due to the use of plastic panels. Typically, the outside iStream panels are not part of the monocoque and generally injection moulded plastic would be used. However, as the size of a vehicle is increased, the flush and gap quality is more difficult to control within a plastic panel. “We’re working on a bigger product now which has got aluminium skins on the outside – non-structural, but aluminium,” says Murray. “They get away with that product. So a limitation we thought was there probably isn’t any more.”
Two seats to three tons
While there has been much talk about iStream being used to create smaller vehicles, GMD is working on an entire range of products, from a two-seater city car, to a three-and-a-half ton truck. And, as Murray says, “We’re a bunch of designers, so if a customer comes along with a product we think could be suitable, we tend to come up with solutions for them, because that’s what we do.”
So what is the potential for iStream over the coming years? The iStream relationships are long-term, so the business would only need two or three contracts to ensure success. However, having made a conservative scout around the world – except in China – Murray is positive that GMD could sell 35 licences.
In established markets, iStream offers OEMs something to combat emissions legislation fines. “It’s an absolute antidote for fuel consumption and CO2 in established markets, and it increases levels of safety while it’s saving weight,” Murray says proudly. While OEMs are exploring multi-niche vehicles, wanting to create a variety of powertrains, iStream can achieve this on the same production line and on the same platform. “Who is going to win the powertrain race? Or the fuel race? People don’t really know. And, with all that uncertainty and change, we can supply a very flexible solution to somebody that doesn’t quite know who the winners are going to be, rather than investing £2bn (US$3.2bn) in a new stamped steel platform and be stuck with that.”
For emerging markets, the main benefit of iStream is increased safety. “There’s a big push for Global NCAP to bring up the safety levels in developing countries and developing markets. And just by its nature, iStream will be a much safer vehicle in those markets,” Murray comments. The capital investment is also lowered and gives manufacturers the chance to “dip a toe in the water” by spending a fraction of the cost of a metal stamping plant.
Crossroads
The turning point for GMD was 2008. When the business opened in 2007, there was huge concern about how the team would convince OEMs of the benefits of iStream. However, fuel prices rose, the financial crisis hit and, Murray says, OEMs finally sat up and paid attention: the old method of producing a car for ten years with two variants and recouping the investment back in six years no longer worked. People stopped buying cars, the attitude of younger buyers changed and brand loyalty was nowhere near as strong.
Although GMD did not expect to develop partnerships with more start-ups or those not involved in the automotive industry, like Yamaha – because “iStream gives a newcomer a chance to leapfrog OEMs, so for them, not only are they catching up, they have a structure that’s lighter, stiffer, more durable, safer and more flexible from the point of view of product strategy” – the opposite happened. GMD is now working with seven OEM projects and two start-ups, which Murray cannot currently discuss further. “It’s so frustrating not to be able to talk to people about it, but it’s entirely a customer programme and it’s entirely up to the customer when they go public.” He did however hint that there may be one or two more partnership announcements in 2014.
While interest from OEMs may have been surprisingly high, Murray says GMD has “a full suite of tools, to help somebody get from an idea on a bit of paper to the cars coming off the line. We could very, very simply make an Apple or a Google or a Sony or anything like that. And because iStream doesn’t need the massive investment that stamped steel does, the risk – there will always be a risk – is but a fraction of what it would be if they tried to do it any other way.”
Gordon Murray has consistently managed to turn his personal ambitions into successful businesses and found just the right gaps in the market. Most recently, his attention has been focused on the “huge gap in the market, in Europe in particular, for a low cost simple sports car,” similar to the smart Roadster, “a car delivered in fun,” but better connected. iStream would be perfect for this, says Murray. “Roadsters are notoriously difficult to make stiff and strong enough with no roof. With iStream, once the monocoque is bonded into the frame, we can have all the strength, if we want to, in the lower part of the car so it’s absolutely perfect for a little lightweight roadster.” He was keen to stress that this would not be another Porsche Boxster, but something most people could afford as a little car – and fortunately, he already has some customers talking about such a vehicle.
Planes, trains and automobiles
Murray also believes that iStream could be used to manufacture industrialised housing, planes or railway coaches, but was keen to stress that GMD’s main focus would remain in the automotive sector because it is “what we know”. In fact, the company has already been working with the Brazilian government on applications across other sectors. Murray says, “The one that particularly interests me is industrialised housing; I think there’s a lot of future there.”
In Brazil particularly, GMD plans to look at the materials and waste produced there; see what composite technology could be applied, and how resources could be used effectively. “We need to look at how you can take a country’s waste, or by-products from production, and turn them into something useful. Brazil’s a fascinating market. Outside China it’s probably the biggest opportunity for growth and new ideas and concepts.”
With several other projects already well advanced, including one ahead of Yamaha, iStream products will hopefully be seen on roads in the next few years, perhaps even as early as 2016, says Murray. “The next big hill to climb is to actually get some signed contracts and iStream products on the market. My next target, before I get diluted with houses or aeroplanes or anything else, is to see people driving around in iStream vehicles and as many as possible, safer, lighter, better handling, all the benefits.”
For Murray, a man who constantly craves a new challenge, what will be next after he successfully gets iStream vehicles on our roads? “There’s another personal ambition. I think I’ve probably got one more supercar left in me. When we’ve got iStream up and running, I might take a selected bunch from here, because I’ve still got a lot of people here that did the McLaren F1 with me. We were such a powerful team and we still are. So I think I’d like to do the supercar, and it won’t be anything like these 1.5 ton complex things out there. It’d be another bit of art really.”
Rachael Hogg
