From £1 Million Racers to £5,000 Commuters

That orange beast above is the hugely desirable, but not very green, Mclaren F1, created by Gordon Murray. Interestingly, Murray is now turning his attention to green transportation and designing a green car. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens when the guy who designed the world's fastest production car tries to make a little, cheap, green car.

His company, Gordon Murray Design, has described it as, "a new class of vehicle. You won’t get in it, sit in it or put luggage in it like a normal car. This will not be just another small big car; it’s just different."

They aim to get the first prototypes working within two years, and then license it to big manufacturers. Part of getting the cost down will be economies of scale which a small company just couldn't achieve. They believe that they can get running costs down to a quarter of that for the VW Golf, and that these savings will pay for the car within four years.

Murray said, "this car will come with a bunch of incentives on things like tax and parking that mean that within four years you’ll pay off the purchase cost with the savings; it’s not just fuel. Basically, the car is free after four years, and if that’s not an incentive I don’t know what else to do. I’ll go back to racing!" ::Car Magazine