British electric hypercar company McMurtry has a somewhat unfair advantage over the rest of the car world, and it's used it to achieve a pair of astonishing acceleration records: 0-60 mph in 1.4 seconds, and a 7.97-second quarter mile.
This miniature, single-seat batmobile of a thing weighs less than 1,000 kg (2,204 lb) and makes 1,000 horsepower, with a super-low drag frontal profile. But there are other cars out there with ludicrous numbers attached; that's not what gives the Spéirling its unfair advantage. Indeed, since most of the field use all-wheel-drive systems and the Spéirling's entire power output has to get to the ground through just the back two 240-section tires, you'd expect it to run at a disadvantage purely from having less grip.
But you'd be wrong; this thing has a set of fans underneath it that can suck it to the ground with an insane 2,000 kg (4,409 lb) of downforce at a standstill. So when you turn those fans on, it grips the road like a 3,000 kg (6,614 lb) clingfish, but accelerates forward like the featherweight it is. This overcomes the chief problem holding back electric hypercars from accelerating faster; pure tire adhesion, and the results are, well, pretty frightening by the looks of things.
Rimac's Nevera can do 0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds, and was previously the only production car ever to do a sub-nine second quarter mile. The Spéirling beats it to 60 by an astonishing half a second, and demolishes its quarter mile by half a second as well.
Oh, and it did it in the middle of a British winter, on a damp Hangar straight at Silverstone that had been gone over with a track drier. And if that wasn't enough, the Spéirling was speed-limited to 150 mph after its record-setting Goodwood hill climb. It sat on this speed for "approximately three seconds." In other words, it spent nearly half its time on the quarter-mile not accelerating, and still ate the Nevera's lunch.
The car in question was indeed the same pre-production machine that McMurtry took to Goodwood, so the company can't yet claim to have the world's fastest-accelerating production car. But this machine is indeed the basis for the production machines, which will weigh the same, make the same amount of power, and also make the same amount of downforce. They're unlikely to be limited to 150 mph, though, so there's a very good chance the production version will go even faster.
These times were set by Carwow motojourno Mat Watson, a veteran of many fast car launches who has done an 8.6-second quarter mile in the Nevera. This man knows what insane acceleration feels like. But in Carwow's video, it frankly looks like the Spéirling is almost too much. Fun and games!
Source: McMurtry
