Latest news with #McMurtrySpéirling
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
The McMurtry Spéirling Drives Upside Down, Finally Putting A High Downforce Theory Into Practice
If you follow motorsport for long enough, you'll eventually hear that a Formula 1 car generates enough downforce above a certain speed that it could theoretically drive upside down. McMurtry Automotive turned this theory into reality after having its Spéirling hypercar complete the impressive feat in a video published on Friday. Admittedly, the Spéirling's success can be solely attributed to its proprietary 'Downforce-on-Demand' fan system that produces 4,400 pounds of downforce at the push of a button. It's a feature that wouldn't be out of place on the next Batmobile. McMurtry didn't have to deal with the pesky logistics of finding a tunnel long enough to safely complete the run. The British manufacturer constructed a rotating rig at its headquarters in England. The hypercar drove up a ramp onto a metal road deck and came to a stop. Thomas Yates, the driver and company co-founder, then switched on the fans. For those looking to do the math, Spéirling weighs 2,200 pounds. With the stopped car's fan whirling at 23,000 rpm, the rig was rotated to invert the road deck. The rig was locked upside down. Then, the hypercar rolled forward a few feet before stopping while inverted. The rig rotated the road deck back down, and the Spéirling drove off like nothing happened. Read more: These Cars Are Police Magnets The McMurtry Spéirling, as a 1,000-hp twin-motor electric hypercar, didn't have to clear the other hurdles that an F1 car would have clear to drive upside down. Dry-sump combustion engines aren't designed to run inverted and would eventually fail catastrophically. Oil wouldn't be able to cycle through and keep the engine lubricated. To oversimplify the system, the lubricant is pumped from an oil tank into the top of the engine. Gravity pulls the oil down to a sump at the bottom, where the oil is pumped back into the tank. This isn't the first time that the Spéirling has done the seemingly impossible. The prototype hypercar shattered the Goodwood Hillclimb record in 2022 after former F1 driver Max Chilton completed the 1.16-mile run in 39.08 seconds. He surpassed the previous mark by over two seconds. The 'Downforce-On-Demand' system isn't a gimmick. It allows the Spéirling to have prodigious acceleration and cornering speeds. McMurtry is working towards finalizing a production version of its hypercar, called the Spéirling PURE. Only 100 will be produced. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
This Electric Hypercar Just Drove Upside Down
In a technical sense, any car that produces more downforce than its curb weight should be able to drive upside down. There have been a number of racing cars over the years that could theoretically accomplish this cartoonish feat, but it's never been officially attempted. That is until now, with the team behind the McMurtry Spéirling proving once and for all that it can be done. I promise that you're going to want to see it for yourself. The Spéirling is a single-seat electric hypercar produced by McMurtry Automotive in the United Kingdom. You may have seen clips of the 1000-hp, carbon-fiber machine destroying the hill climb record at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, or here in the States at Laguna Seca. The magic isn't its EV powertrain or lightweight, but rather the immense Downforce-on-Demand system pioneered by the brand. This setup utilizes two large fans to generate up to 4400 lbs of downforce, which it can do from a standstill. While lots of cars can put out ridiculous aero figures, most require the car to be moving at a rather rapid rate before the figures apply. The attempt itself was more drama-free than you might expect. The team custom-built a large platform on which the car could be driven, which could then be rotated 180 degrees to allow the can to hang from its own suction essentially. Co-founder & Managing Director Thomas Yates drove the Spéirling during the attempt, flanked by employees and independent adjudicators to verify the accomplishment. It's genuinely a wild sight to behold, even with background knowledge of the car's various on-track successes. Then again, that Downforce-on-Demand system has openly been a massive part of why the car can corner at more than 3g and rip off an 8-second quarter-mile sprint. McMurtry Automotive says it will begin deliveries of the Spéirling Pure production model in 2026, with only 100 units slated for buyers. The customer units will see some improvements over the test cars we've grown accustomed to, including a larger 100-kWh battery pack. The automaker says that this larger setup will give customers around 20 minutes of track time at full-blown GT3 Car pace, or record-breaking pace for multiple laps. Unless the average owner has the neck of an F1 driver, that's likely plenty of time per session. The brand also hasn't ruled out another upside-down driving stunt in the future, though what that might look like has yet to be seen. If you start to see tunnel segments floating around in Gloucestershire, you officially know why. You Might Also Like You Need a Torque Wrench in Your Toolbox Tested: Best Car Interior Cleaners The Man Who Signs Every Car
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
An Abandoned Victorian Tunnel Is Key To Developing The World's Fastest Accelerating EV
When it comes to developing a new electric supercar, all kinds of computational models are used to find out just how fast and aerodynamic the new machine will be. But when the time comes to test the car's performance in the real world, engineers call for something much less high tech: a nearly two-mile tunnel in England that was built by the Victorians. The Catesby Tunnel is an abandoned railway tunnel in Northamptonshire, England. The tunnel ran trains on the Great Central Main Line between Sheffield and London for almost 70 years, before it was abandoned in 1966 when the lines changed. Since 2017, the 1.6 mile tunnel has lived a new life as an underground aerodynamic testing facility. Now, the team behind the McMurtry Spéirling has shared a film about how it uses the empty tunnel to fine tune the complex aerodynamics on the fastest accelerating electric vehicle. Read more: Porsche Taycan Turbos Have Lost Up To $100,000 Value In 4 Years During the development of the Spéirling, the engineers used computational fluid dynamics and wind tunnel models to create the aerodynamic bodywork that helped the wild EV set the record on Goodwood's historic hill climb. But the way that a car behaves in a computer simulation or in the wind tunnel can be very different to the way it acts on the road, and that's exactly where the Catesby Tunnel comes in. The facility has a 1.6 mile road running through it, and because it's underground there's no wind, rain, or other variables to mess with the data collected. In this stable environment, McMurtry can repeatedly run the car up and down collecting data about the windspeed around the car, pressures over its surfaces, and its ride height using sensors positioned all over the car. The team then compares the data collected in the tunnel to what it projected using its computer simulations, to ensure the two match up. The process of validating tests in this way is similar to the way Formula 1 teams use flow-vis paint and aero rakes in testing to see how their cars perform on track. However, by carrying the tests out in a controlled environment like the Catesby Tunnel, there are fewer variables like weather and road surface to account for. Testing in a tunnel does have its challenges, though, as the team can't rely on GPS data to check speeds and performance. Instead, they have to analyze footage from onboard cameras pointed at the wheels. They calculate the wheel speed in the footage, and then extrapolate this to get an accurate speed measurement for the car. The film is a lot of fun, and there are some particularly rad shots of the Spéirling blasting through the darkness at 160mph. The smooth surface on the roof of the tunnel does leave me wondering if this could be the place where all those downforce claims--that cars can drive upside down--could one day be put to the test. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
