Image Credit: McMurtry Automotive.
If you've ever looked at your household vacuum and thought, "This is lovely, but I wish it could do 190 mph," then I have some amazing news for you. Meet the McMurtry Spéirling - tiny, carbon-fiber bathtub from the UK that costs an eye-watering $1.26 million and has the personality of a hornet on speed.
$1.26 million for a car that looks like a Batmobile shrunk in a hot wash? Wait until you hear what's happening under that blue skin… Because this isn't your usual, albeit silly fast electric car. This is a "fan car." It literally sucks itself to the tarmac with more enthusiasm than a politician seeking a second term. It generates so much downforce that you could drive it upside down on the ceiling of a tunnel. Though, for the love of all that is holy, please don't try that at home - Spéirling tried it already and there's a video on YouTube to prove it.
Image Credit: McMurtry Automotive.
The secret sauce here is the pair of fans spinning at 23,000 rpm, creating a literal tornado under the chassis. But a vacuum is useless if it doesn't move, and the Spéirling moves with the violence of a mule's kick. It has two bespoke electric motors from a company called Helix. These little gems weigh just 72.7 lbs each but pump out 500 hp apiece. That's a total of 1,000 hp and 1,000 lb-ft of torque in a car that weighs only 2,866 lbs.
A bit of perspective is needed here - this single-seater is only 150.2 inches long, so it's shorter than a Mini Cooper. It's basically a guided missile with a steering wheel. Because it's so light and has all that "ground suckage," it can hit 60 mph in a brain-melting 1.55 seconds. That is faster than almost anything else on four wheels that isn't burning nitromethane and parachuting to a stop.
Image Credit: McMurtry Automotive.
I've seen some fast things before, but an 8-second quarter-mile in a production car is just plain silly. It has already embarrassed the record books at the Top Gear Test Track and Laguna Seca. This ridiculous tool turns speed records into embers and ashes. It delivers the kind of performance that makes you wonder if physics was just a polite suggestion all along.
The motors themselves are "radial flux" units, and though they sound like something out of Back to the Future, they are the real deal. Helix also provides tech for supersonic jets and 2,000-hp hypercars, but here they've managed to cram the power of a small sun into a package the size of a biscuit tin. It's brilliant engineering, even if it does mean the car sounds like a Harrier Jump Jet having a domestic dispute.
Image Credit: McMurtry Automotive.
Inside, there is room for exactly one small person. You sit under a tiny bubble canopy, no room for a passenger - probably for the best because no one wants to witness the face you'll make when 1.55 seconds of acceleration rearranges your features. Selfish, loud, absurd, and simply magnificent piece of kit.
Of course, the Spéirling is completely useless for a shopping run - unless your groceries are located at the end of a drag strip and you need them in under ten seconds. It's a toy for the obscenely wealthy, a technological middle finger to the internal combustion engine, and a reminder that the future of EVs has more to offer than sensible hatchbacks. Pure high-speed madness.
Image Credit: McMurtry Automotive.
Would I want one? In a heartbeat. My chiropractor would hate me, and my neighbors would move house to escape the fan noise, but what a way to enjoy life. The world might be going electric, but it thankfully isn't going boring.
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