VentureBeat

Respected Formula One car designer Gordon Murray is working on a secretive car company, and the from the few clues we’re getting it will use shape and materials design to make cars more efficient.

The company, based in a suburb an outside of London, UK, is called Gordon Murray Design Ltd., and has gotten more than $10 million in a first round of financing. The money comes from Silicon Valley firm Mohr Davidow Ventures and the U.K’s Caparo Group, with which Murray is affiliated. Mohr Davidow has been active supporting other types of cars, such as the Stanford entry in the Grand Challenge, and has been mulling ways that unmanned cars could reduce congestion.

Murray is best known for designing the McLaren F1 supercar of 1994. His McLaren team won eight Constructors Championships in Formula One. His new venture will focus mostly on building a prototype, and it isn’t clear yet whether it will be involved in the actual manufacturing process, Mohr Davidow partner Jon Feiber told VentureBeat. It will not be focused on propulsion technology, i.e., innovating with electric batteries or other sources of alternative power.

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Tags: deal, inv:Caparo-Group, inv:Mohr-Davidow-Ventures, people:Gordon-Murray