We still can’t quite wrap our heads around the McMurtry Spéirling. Every time we see this tiny, 1000bhp track machine in action, it moves forward and changes direction in a way that our brains can’t really comprehend is happening in real time. To add to our utter disbelief at this car, it’s just claimed the outright lap record at the Top Gear Test Track, besting a time set by an actual Formula 1 car that’s stood for over 20 years.
That was a lap you might remember from 2004, when ‘The Stig’ (apparently it was actually then-Renault F1 test driver Heikki Kovalainen) took a 2004 Renault R24 F1 car round a slightly damp Dunsfold in a symphony of V10 wail.
The resulting time of 59.0 seconds stood for over two decades as the outright fastest time around Dunsfold, and made the R24 the only thing to lap the 1.75-mile circuit in under a minute (not including that time a Harrier jump jet went around the ‘track’ in 31 seconds).
That record’s finally tumbled, because the Spéirling, in its most extreme Pure guise, has just set a lap of 55.9 seconds in the hands of the current Stig, who is definitely not GT racer Phil Keen. In case you can’t be bothered to do the math, that’s 3.1 seconds faster.
McMurtry Spéirling Pure – rear
If you needed a quick refresher on the tiny Spéirling, it uses a pair of electric motors to deliver 1000bhp to the back wheels, weighs under a tonne, and uses an enormous fan to suck itself to the ground and deliver around 2000kg of downforce at basically any speed. It’ll hit 60mph in a scarcely believable 1.55 seconds and max out at 190mph.
McMurtry’s co-founder and managing director, Thomas Yates, said: “This record evokes great feelings of nostalgia for the incredible cars that starred before ours on Top Gear. For the McMurtry team, this is not just a record—it’s a testament to our passion for innovation, performance and lightweight. We dedicate this record to Sir David McMurtry, who founded this company and whose legacy we proudly carry forward in everything that we do.”
McMurtry Spéirling Pure – front
Of course, if Top Gear was still on, Jeremy Clarkson/Chris Harris would now be pointing out that as the Spéirling Pure isn’t road-legal, it can’t go on the board. Not to worry, though, because the record for road legal cars was also recently broken by over a second by the Aston Martin Valkyrie, as part of the same Stig Laps YouTube series as this astonishing McMurtry lap.
This isn’t the first time the Spéirling has given F1 machinery a bloody nose – back in 2022, it broke a 23-year-old record set by Nick Heidfeld in a 1999 McLaren F1 car at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. So, any of the current F1 teams want to send a more modern machine to Dunsfold and try and reclaim some honour?
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