Watch the McMurtry Speirling Fan Car Drive Upside Down

There are few machines out there quite as absurd as the McMurtry Spéirling. This all-electric fan car has spent its entire existence ripping through records (not to mention entire race fields) like they don’t even exist. Today, McMurtry added yet another feather to the Spéirling’s already impressively plumed hat by driving it upside down.

While virtually every other high-performance car generates downforce by passing air quickly over surfaces designed to create negative lift, the McMurtry Spéirling’s massive fans create enough vacuum beneath the car to generate 4,400 pounds of downforce while it’s standing still. We’ve seen what this can do in the real world, but for this more abstract demonstration, McMurtry had to get creative.

Because if you’re like us, your first question was probably “How?” Perhaps followed by “Also, where?” Well, as you might imagine, there aren’t too many upside-down test tracks out there. Add that to the list of things McMurtry would have to invent just to prove its car can perform as advertised. This insane rotisserie (complete with an inverted “McMurtry Parking Only” decal) allowed the team to drive the Spéirling on (slowly) and invert the “road” surface simultaneously.

Since the Spéirling doesn’t need fast-moving air to do its trick, McMurtry didn’t need a long runway for its demonstration. Apart from the big circular tracks on which the fabricated road surface pivots, the rig looks like little more than a four-post lift with a solid metal deck. With the fans on full blast and thumbs-up all around, the rig rotates and the Spéirling inches forward at the command of test driver Thomas Yates. It’s no “Men in Black“-style drive through the Lincoln Tunnel, but it’s impressive nonetheless.

And before you ask, of course there’s video.

McMurtry notes that the car used for this demonstration was the company’s PURE Validation Prototype 1, which it describes as an evolution of the car used to set the world record at Goodwood. The new car is 3.1 seconds quicker around the Top Gear test track, smashing its previous “record” from 2023.

The prototype used for the inverted drive wears the same livery found on the company’s original prototype from 2021, albeit “adapted with special details for upside down running.” Look carefully and you might spot the differences. Ah, British humor. Never change.

Got tips? Send ’em to tips@thedrive.com

The post Watch the McMurtry Speirling Fan Car Drive Upside Down appeared first on The Drive.