At its first Goodwood Festival of Speed, McMurtry’s electric fan car, Spéirling, won the hill-climb competition and broke the previous record.
The 1000 bhp/tonne rear-wheel-drive fan car, driven by former F1 and IndyCar driver Max Chilton, completed the 1.86 km track in just 39.06 seconds.
The Spéirling shattered both the Volkswagen ID.R’s 2019 practice time of 39.9 seconds and Nick Heidfeld’s previous timed shootout record of 41.6 seconds set in 1999.
The McMurtry Spéirling, the first electric hypercar to compete on the Goodwood Festival track, is being developed by McMurtry Automotive, a British startup company founded in 2016 by Irishman Sir David McMurtry.
Spéirling, which translates to “thunderstorm” in Irish, is a driving game where the driver can control an active downforce fan that is mounted on the car using buttons on the steering wheel. 2000 kg of additional downforce are available from a standstill thanks to the twin fans.
The battery for the Spéirling is 60 kWh, which, according to the WLTP test cycle, will enable the vehicle to travel 350 km.
The car can be operated for up to 60 minutes on a single charge while travelling at GT3 speed.
Although McMurtry has yet to formally release mass and power figures, it claims that when the production version is ready, the car will weigh less than 1000 kg and have a mass to power ratio of at least 746 kW per 1000 kg (1 horsepower per kilogram).
According to the manufacturer, this setup will allow the Spéirling to accelerate from 0 to 300 km/h in just 9 seconds and reach an estimated top speed of more than 320 km/h.
EVs can generate 100% of their maximum torque between 0 and 1 RPM. They are becoming a better option if you want more speed and torque.
More intriguingly, the switch to electric vehicles is enabling engineers and designers to create insanely bizarre vehicles.
Things that were considered science fiction five to ten years ago are now not only feasible, but they are also being built and operated. It’s fascinating and extremely exciting to see how these performance-oriented electric vehicles are being designed, built, and what materials are being used to build them. It’s also not just about replacing combustion engines.
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