Murray joined forces with Yamaha to produce this fabled car, and they got as far as building a few functioning prototypes. Then Yamaha made some leadership changes, and the project was canned. “It would’ve been in production now for four years,” Murray told Road & Track. “The business plan we did for them, it was going to be 5,000 units a year. So there would be 20,000 of them out there now.”
But surely the father of the McLaren F1 could find another big manufacturer to collaborate with? As it turns out, the answer is no. “The problem [is] now they want electric,” said Murray. “The time [to build the car] was then.” The opportunity has come and gone.
So, in addition to blaming Yamaha, you can also blame electrification. Thanks to the push for EVs, we lost out on what could have been a proper rival to the Porsche 718 Cayman and Alpine A110. Murray even had the 2011 AR.1 Concept (pictured) to use as inspiration for the design, but alas.
