Before a new car hits the market, it’s usually extensively tested in all manner of conditions. Pesky things like cold and altitude can massively affect a car, and manufacturers need to know exactly how things will change before releasing their shiny new vehicle onto unsuspecting consumers. It’s a very buttoned-up, professional process, one that involves absolutely no snow drifts, donuts, or burnouts.
...Are the bosses gone? Perfect. Now that they’re not listening, of course cold-weather testing involves all sorts of low-grip shenanigans. Inclement condition testing is done by engineers, and no one takes more delight in abusing a vehicle than the very people who put it together. Allow the team behind the Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 to demonstrate, in a new behind-the-scenes video from the car’s development.
We’ve seen footage from the T.50's testing before, most notably when test drivers slammed it into gravel piles and launched it from ramps. This is all useful information to gather, of course — what if one of your customers needs to stay above 50 miles an hour, but encounters a closed, still-under-construction highway overpass? Engineers need to think of these sorts of things.
The kind of people who can afford a T.50 will likely never subject it to true danger — be it snow, ramps, or ever venturing further than the drive from a climate-controlled garage to a local Cars and Coffee. But, still, the team working on the car needs to know that it’s prepared for any treacherous eventuality. It’s all for science, you see. At least, that’s how they’ll explain it when the boss gets back from lunch early.