The Gordon Murray Automotive Type 50 was designed by the company’s namesake, Gordon Murray, to be aerodynamic. The GMA T.50 takes inspiration from Murray’s previous design, the McLaren F1, and features a lightweight V12 engine and a fan on the rear. The supercar represents Gordan Murray’s 50-year career.
The Tamiya 1/24 scale Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 plastic model kit is a fully detailed kit with amazing tooling, like molded open coil springs. It has posable steering, rolling wheels, and a unique approach to opening the rear engine covers. The kit provides one set of two body panels and two sets of interchangeable clear windows that contain the mounting tabs for either open or closed placement. The directional tires are nice, but do not have sidewall details.
Cleanly molded, only the points where the panels attach to the runners need to be addressed. Some interesting body lines could be mistaken for mold lines, but they are supposed to be there, so be careful.
While the engine and suspension look great and fit together well, they are hidden when all is said and done. While the coil-over springs look functional, they do not work.
The interior is designed for easy painting without masking, too. This came in handy for the two-tone scheme I used, and it will be a big help for the flat and semigloss black versions, too.
The clear window and headlight parts are cleverly engineered and do not require any cement for installation. Other parts, when they are glued, hold the clear pieces in place. Installing the three door and roof windows at once takes a bit of juggling, but after the first side is done, the second side is much easier. The windshield snaps in place with no glue, as do the two rear windows.
When fitting the body to the chassis, it took me a couple of tries before I realized there are two fastening features in the rear wheel wells that need to be snapped in place to get the exhaust pipes to line up with the openings in the screen. A paintbrush handle worked great to pop those two tabs into the proper locations. Then everything lined up correctly.
Up to this point, the fit of every part of the T.50 kit was downright exceptional. However, when I went to install the rear body/window panels in the closed position, they did not fit well at all. Neither sat well enough for a cleanly buttoned-up car, looking partially closed but not latched. For me, the fit of those panels was important.
Yes, the engine bay is packed with detail, but you can’t see most of it after installing the body, even with the engine covers open or off. To get the panels to fit, I filed approximately a quarter of the thickness, about a third of the way up, off the inboard sides of the mounting tabs on the rear windows that insert into the top of the engine. That helped a lot. The open position of the panels had no fit problems afterward.
The instructions provide plenty of detail-painting information — most of it is easy to do freehand with a brush. The parts breakdown also eases painting with minimal masking. I chose to hand paint instead of masking anything. You’ll also find decals to accent and detail all facets of the car, including one on the front of the transmission that you won’t be able to see.
Tamiya supplies metal transfers for the lettering on the cam covers and exterior badging. Decals supplement the exterior transfers and look great. The photo-etched metal screens for the rear capture the openness of that part of the full-sized car. The downforce-generating fan spins, too, but not as freely as I’d like.
The Tamiya 1/24 scale Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 plastic model kit was an enjoyable project, and I found the subject interesting. The model comes together pretty easily, aside from the body panels, so it would be best suited for someone with an intermediate modeling skill level.