- Top Gear's head of car testing drives the McMurtry Speirling around a track and is left gobsmacked.
- They compare the Speirling to a Porsche 911 GT3 RS, one of the most track-focused road cars, which looks slow in comparison.
Many electric vehicles are designed with a track focus these days, but the McMurtry Speirling makes them look basic. The latest version, the Speirling Pure prototype, has been smashing lap records around the world with its unmatched combination of power, lightness and downforce.
It has 1,000 horsepower from two motors driving the rear wheels and can hit 60 mph from a standstill in under 1.5 seconds. However, its most interesting (and performance-enhancing) feature is its fan that effectively sticks the car to the tarmac (even when it’s standing still), providing up to 4,400 pounds of downforce.
This allows the Speirling to corner at absurd speeds, subjecting drivers to over 3G of lateral force. For context, the very best track-focused road cars like a Porsche 911 GT3 RS struggle to reach 1.3G through corners, while a Formula 1 car will go up to 6G through a very high-speed corner where its aero is working at peak capacity.
Driving a Speirling is a one-of-a-kind experience since there isn’t another car that creates downforce the way it does. It’s also really quick in a straight line, and unlike a car with conventional aero, whose rate of acceleration slows as speed builds due to drag, in the Speirling it feels just as relentless all the way to its top speed.
Top Gear put its head of car testing, Ollie Marriage, behind the wheel of the Speirling Pure, and he was left gobsmacked. He tried the three different fan settings, which change not only the amount of downforce but also the power provided by the motors to mimic different racing series. The lowest fan setting simulates a GT3 car, after which you can move up to LMP1 and then to F1 levels of acceleration and grip.
The way you can corner in a Speirling is remarkable, and even though it feels surefooted and undramatic, the forces at work on your body do take their toll. Marriage does note in his track test of the Speirling Pure that after a few laps, he is beginning to feel the strain of all those lateral and longitudinal forces.
McMurtry won’t build either the first Speirling prototype or the newer Speirling Pure in this exact form. The production Speirling will have a longer wheelbase and a larger 100-kilowatt-hour battery pack, and it will be slightly heavier than the prototypes, weighing in at about 2,650 pounds. Even with the extra weight, it will still be able to smash through the quarter-mile in about 8 seconds and reach a top speed of 185 mph.
With a price tag of £895,000, or over $1.1 million, the McMurtry Speirling is very expensive for a single-seater track toy. The manufacturer says only 100 will be built, and the first are expected to arrive in 2025. McMurtry has also revealed that it’s analyzing the possibility of making a road-legal version.
