Yamaha
Sports Ride
When
it comes to car design, Gordon Murray has had a highly varied career. He
designed the McLaren F1 supercar, as well as the lightweight Rocket single-seat
sports car and numerous race cars. Throughout his career, Murray has always emphasized
lightweight construction in his designs, and his latest work is no different.
The
Yamaha Sports Ride is a new concept car that debuted this week at the 2015
Tokyo Motor Show, using Murray's iStream Carbon structure. Its chassis is
billed as the world's first affordable high-volume carbon-fiber vehicle
architecture, and represents a move to take carbon construction further beyond
the realm of supercars.
The
Sports Ride concept also uses Murray's iStream construction process, which the
designer claims allows for a factory 20 percent smaller than one set up to use
conventional assembly methods. For the iStream Carbon Sports Ride, the
fiberglass material used in other iterations of the iStream concept was
replaced with carbon fiber. The construction is based on two skins of carbon
fiber with a honeycomb core sandwiched in between, as opposed to the solid
carbon parts used on many modern production cars. Thanks to its carbon chassis,
the Sports Ride concept weighs just 1,653 pounds.
This
isn't the first collaboration between Gordon Murray and Yamaha. He previously
designed a small city car called the Motiv for the company. An electric
version--the Motiv.E--has also been shown.
Yamaha
did not discuss specifications of the Sports Ride, so it's unclear exactly what
is powering it. The Sports Ride will likely remain a concept, although the
iStream Carbon structure and construction process are already being eyed for
use on production vehicles.
Gordon
Murray Design says there are currently seven vehicles in development using the
original, non-carbon iStream process.
