Latest news with #Spéirling
Forbes
14-04-2025
- Automotive
- Forbes
This Tiny British Car Has So Much Downforce It Just Drove Upside-Down
Motorsport fans love to talk about how, theoretically, a Formula One car produces so much downforce it could drive upside-down. While true enough – the simple math is that a car would need to generate more downforce than its own weight – proving this in the real world is tricky. You'd need a long tunnel with a flat roof and an elaborate, curved ramp. Plus a car modified so that its engine still works when inverted. Or, you could ask a tiny British startup that produces an equally small car to do what no one else has. McMurtry demonstrated last week how its Spéirling can not only hold itself to the road when fully inverted, but also drive forwards without falling down. To quickly get you up to speed, the Spéirling is a tiny, one-seat electric supercar with a unique fan system that sucks it to the ground by spinning at up to 23,000 rpm. This, plus a power output of 1,000 horsepower and a total weight of just 1,000 kg (2,200 lbs), has already earned the car a number of records. It holds the hill climb records at both Goodwood and Laguna Seca, and just this month broke the outright TopGear Test Track lap record, which was set by a Renault Formula One car and had stood for 20 years. The fan system generates an enormous 2,000 kg (4,400 lbs) of downforce. This is enough to keep it planted to the road through corners – and, since it works at any speed, is just as powerful when the car is standing still, or driven slowly. McMurtry calls it 'downforce on demand' since the strength of the suction can be adjusted via a switch on the steering wheel. Using a purpose-built test rig, McMurtry completed the world-first stunt by driving the car up a ramp and onto a platform. With the fans ramped up and the car parked, the platform then rotated through 180 degrees until the Spéirling was fully upside-down. McMurtry co-founder and managing director Thomas Yates then drove forward slightly, before stopping and letting the platform rotate back round again. And the most impressive thing of all? McMurtry is selling this car to the public. It plans to offer 100 examples of what it calls the Spéirling Pure, with prices starting at £895,000 ($1,180,000) plus tax and shipping. The company claims the car can sprint to 60 mph in just 1.55 seconds, cover a quarter-mile in eight seconds, develop 3G in the corners and has a top speed of 185 mph. It measures just 40 inches tall – the same as the legendary Ford GT40, of course – 146 inches long and 70 inches wide. Deliveries of customer cars are due to begin in 2026. After becoming the first person to drive a car upside-down, Yates hinted at plans for scaling up the experiment. 'This demonstration was an exciting proof of concept using a small purpose-built rig, but is perhaps just the beginning of what's possible. With a longer inverted track or a suitable tunnel, we may be able to drive even further! Huge congratulations and thanks to the entire McMurtry Automotive team, especially the engineers involved in the car and fan system's design, they are the heroes of today. '
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.
