The McMurtry Spéirling Pure is quicker than an F1 car, smaller than a supermini and costs £1.2million
The 1000bhp McMurtry Spéirling Pure fan car is on sale for £1.2million, putting F1 performance in the hands of track day goers
With bleeding edge machines like the Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR Pro, Gordon Murray T.50s Niki Lauda and Ferrari's 499P Modificata, we’re in an era of extreme track-only hypercars. And none, you could argue, are quite as extreme as the McMurtry Spéirling Pure. The Pure is a product of obsessive lightweight engineering and a fan-based aero philosophy, and puts F1-level performance in the hands of trackday goers – if you have £995,000 (plus taxes) to spend.
The Pure is a production spec (but still track only) version of the single-seat Spéirling EV prototype that decimated the Goodwood hillclimb in 2022 with a 39.08sec run – beating the likes of the Volkswagen ID.R and a McLaren MP4-13 Formula 1 car. As such it’s gained a raft of refinements and usability improvements while still achieving the same absurd level of performance as the original. The overall design philosophy is similar, but 95 per cent of the components are new.
The Spéirling’s layout and engineering approach are quite unlike anything else. It’s built around a single seat carbonfibre chassis and comes in at 3.8 metres long, making it shorter than many superminis. Its body is shrink wrapped around a modular 100kWh battery pack, up a significant 60kWh from the prototype. To accommodate the new battery and the 1000bhp dual-motor rear axle setup, it now has a 200mm longer wheelbase.
The larger battery and an increased 200kW regen capacity means the Pure can run for up to 31 miles on track at LMP2 pace, but also makes the Pure heavier than earlier prototypes, now approximately 1350kg, compared to 1050kg of before. That doesn’t seem to hurt acceleration however, with the Pure managing 0-60mph in 1.55sec, inclusive of a one-foot rollout. The top speed is 190mph.
Despite the enormous rear wing and numerous slats and air pathways cut into the exterior, the Spéirling Pure’s key performance generator is its underbody aero. A pair of 23,000rpm fans sit behind the cockpit to suck air from underneath the car and out of a central tunnel at the rear; this, combined with the sealed-skirt design, creates an area of low pressure beneath the car. For the Pure, the fan blades and skirts are more durable, and the latter can be retracted for low speed manoeuvring.
The system, which McMurtry calls ‘Downforce-on-Demand’, enables the Pure to generate 2000kg of downforce, and up to 3G under cornering and braking. The key, though, is that the fans generate this downforce from 0mph, where conventional wings need speed to become effective. Working with the aero are wider Michelin slick tyres than the prototype with taller sidewalls, plus revised suspension with a 20 per cent taller ride height, increased articulation and optional electronically adjustable dampers. The steering, meanwhile, has switched from electric to hydraulic power assistance.
Being longer and wider than the Spéirling prototype it’s therefore more roomy inside, and able to accommodate drivers up to 6ft 7 in a custom moulded seat. It also features headlights, brake lights and indicators for track days, plus a boot compartment to store a helmet and HANS device, plus traction control and ABS for the Brembo carbon ceramic braking system.
McMurtry has designed the Pure to be a plug and play track day car, and able to run without a support team (although this is offered to customers). You’d ideally need to use it at tracks with high speed charging, however. The Pure can be topped up from 20 to 95 per cent in as little as 20 minutes, depending on the ambient temperature and speed of the charger, and McMurtry offers a portable 100kWh power bank as an option, to top up the battery at speeds of up to 120kW.
Deliveries of the Pure will begin later this year, with prices starting from £995,000 not including taxes or options. Before that, it’ll be on display at the 2026 Goodwood Festival of Speed.
