Faster Than Everything, Travis Pastrana and the McMurtry Spéirling Electric Hypercar

Photo credit: McMurtry
Travis Pastrana has jumped from a plane with no parachute, landed the first double backflip on a motorcycle, collected 11 X Games gold medals, and raced the Daytona 500. On a day at Dunsfold Aerodrome in England, the same airfield used as the old Top Gear test track, he still found something that reset his scale. He climbed into a McMurtry Spéirling prototype and later said he had gone faster than in any vehicle of his life.

Pastrana framed the morning as a childhood box finally getting checked. “Today I get to live out a childhood dream by taking the fastest vehicle on earth,” he said as he walked up to the closed-cockpit single-seater. Later he called it a crazy 1,000 horsepower vacuum car whose downforce makes you feel like you are driving upside down. After a few laps he was blunt: “Holy s***. That’s what I’m talkin’ about. You can do things you can’t do with any other vehicle… I’m going faster than I’ve gone in any vehicle I’ve ever driven in my entire life.”

He started easy to learn the steering and brakes. Even on reduced power the car felt like a very serious go-kart until the fans came on. Then the whole relationship with the asphalt changed. “Downforce up, power up, good freaking time,” he said. He thought he was carrying too much speed into Dunsfold’s Hammerhead and still made the corner. Full power and full fan load followed. He giggled through a standing quarter mile that finished in under eight seconds at 160 mph, tires never spinning. Traction control kept the rear planted until the grip arrived, then the car simply left.

Two Helix electric motors deliver 1,000 horsepower to the rear wheels via an electronic differential, making life easier in what is a really wild configuration out back. Under the sealed floor, two pairs of fans generate 2,000 kilograms (about 4400 pounds) of downforce. Unlike a wing, which only begins to function beyond a particular speed, this machine operates from a complete stop, with no waiting for speed.

When compared to the production Speirling PURE, the car’s official stats appear to be spot on: 0-60 mph in 1.55 seconds, and 3G of g-force when entering turns. It’s the same during braking; 3G is no joke, and the top speed is 190 mph. Carbon-ceramic disks and six-piston Brembo calipers provide braking, while Michelin Pilot Sport GT slicks perform well in turns. By the way, the identical prototype lapped Dunsfold in 55.9 seconds in 2025, setting a new outright lap record and improving by three seconds on the previous title-holder, the 2004 Renault R24 Formula 1 car. Pastrana mentioned in passing that he believed a tunnel with an on-ramp would be a good next test to try out the thing.

Speirling PURE is currently being produced at McMurtry’s facility in Gloucestershire, specifically Wotton-under-Edge. In comparison to the prototypes, around 95 percent of the car’s components are new. One of the most significant enhancements is a 100kwh battery that contains a large number of Molicel cells stacked in a ‘U’ configuration around the safety cell.Weight is around 1,350 kilos (depending on the upgrades you choose, of course), which is almost 3,000 pounds for us Americans. You can get 40 to 50 kilometer runs on a charge with the speed reduced to LMP2 levels. Charging from 20 to 95 percent takes between 20 to 60 minutes. McMurtry will only make 100 of these cars, and they’ll cost you £995,000 (about $1.3 million) before all the extras, taxes, and shipping the first customer automobiles are anticipated later in 2026.
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