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Even at 80, Gordon Murray is still creating some of the most striking and driver-focused cars in the world. His company, Gordon Murray Special Vehicles, unveiled the new S1 on Friday at Monterey Car Week, and despite a line-up of headline-grabbing debuts from Aston Martin, Koenigsegg, McLaren and others, a limited-run V-12-powered manual supercar still managed to stand apart. For Murray, bringing that car and the brand behind it into existence became the focus he needed while fighting a serious cancer diagnosis a few years ago.

“Unfortunately, I had oesophageal cancer, and normally there’s only a couple of percent survival rate,” Murray told Road & Track at GMSV’s Monterey Car Week event. “But I’m lucky. I caught it. I go for a check-up every year, and I caught it really early... It’s a really tough one. It’s the worst one you can have, basically.”

The designer said the treatment involved robotic surgery followed by around four months of chemotherapy. “When you go in and you sit in the big chair and they pump all the stuff into you, normally they say, you know, bring a book. I took a sketch pad and a ballpoint and spent every single session [sketching], and then at home with the self-administering chemo as well.”

Although Gordon Murray Automotive, the company responsible for the acclaimed T.50 and T.33 supercars, is already fully operational, Murray explained that designing the Special Vehicles range “is a different thought process from the GMA core products.” As a result, launching this new business, along with working on fresh car designs, proved to be a valuable distraction.

“I just spent the whole time—four months—thinking of how I could set the company up and who would run it,” Murray said. “It honestly helped me through that, because I think if you haven’t got something, if you’re going through that—and it was terrible, the chemo—and you haven’t got something to focus on, it’s far, far worse. I still do 11 hours [of work] a day, yeah, and just turned 80. If I was just some chap who’d retired and went through that, I’m not sure I could have got through, to be honest.”

Murray also told Road & Track that he was so impressed by both the outcome and the recovery time made possible by the robotic surgery that he bought a new robot for his surgeon.

“My brother had the same thing. In fact, he died of it, and he was in intensive care for weeks and weeks and weeks. I was in intensive care for six days because the robotic surgery is so less intrusive. I was so pleased. I bought them a new robot,” Murray said. “It just arrived last night. Funnily enough, coincidentally, the surgeon sent me two pictures and said, ‘Thank you very much. Just done the first operation with your robot...’ It’s the most amazing piece of engineering. It’s incredible. I got so into it, and now I’ve become quite friendly with the surgeon. So, you know, I’m still asking questions about the technology and stuff. Fascinating.”