Ten years ago, McMurtry Automotive was a handful of engineers in rural Gloucestershire with a blank sheet of paper. Today it builds the McMurtry Spéirling PURE, a single-seat electric fan car that set an outright record at the Goodwood Festival of Speed Hillclimb, beat a Formula 1 car’s lap time around the Top Gear Test Track, and became the first car ever to drive upside down. To mark its tenth anniversary, the British company has released a new film covering the decade, and the story behind it is just as unusual as the car.
It Started With Concorde
The McMurtry story begins long before the company did. In the 1970s, Sir David McMurtry was the youngest-ever Deputy Chief Engineer on the Rolls-Royce Olympus engines that powered Concorde. The engines’ tiny fuel pipes had to be measured with extraordinary accuracy, and no tool existed that could do it. So he invented one: the touch-trigger probe, which measures the spatial coordinates of components to hundredths of a millimeter.
Sir David patented the invention and, with colleague John Deer, founded Renishaw plc, now one of Britain’s leading engineering companies. Today, almost every vehicle, aircraft, train, or rocket built has had parts measured by one of his probes. In 2015, he set his sights on cars, convincing Thomas Yates to leave Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains in Formula 1, together with Yates’s best friend Kevin Ukoko-Rongione, now McMurtry’s Technical Director.
D01: A Superbike on Four Wheels
In 2016, a team of just six engineers set out to build the ultimate small, lightweight driver’s car. The result was D01, which weighed 660 kg (1,455 lb), made 400 hp from a 40 kWh battery, drove all four wheels, and sat on a bespoke carbon fiber chassis with a very short wheelbase. It drove like nothing else, but commercially the project didn’t add up.
The team needed a car that stayed small and light but could outperform an F1 car and earn a place in the hypercar world. The breakthrough came during a conversation in Sir David’s office, when he suggested they simply suck the car to the ground.
The Fan Car Comes Back From the Dead
The idea had history. In 1970, the Chaparral 2J Can-Am racer used a second engine to spin two large fans and pull itself onto the track. In 1978, the Brabham BT46B won the Swedish Grand Prix on its Formula 1 debut, then was withdrawn and never raced again.
Between 2018 and 2021, McMurtry rebuilt the concept for the electric age. The Spéirling prototype, named after the Gaelic word for thunderstorm, was unveiled in 2021 and can generate up to 2,000 kg (4,409 lb) of downforce from a standstill. In June 2022, it set the Goodwood Festival of Speed Hillclimb record, which still stands. Between 2023 and 2024, a customer test-drive program took the car around the world, adding records at Hockenheim, Castle Combe, and Laguna Seca.
The Stig, an F1 Record, and an Upside-Down Drive
2025 was the year McMurtry went truly global. With The Stig at the wheel at Dunsfold, the Spéirling PURE prototype set a new Top Gear Test Track lap record, beating the time once held by the 2004 Renault F1 car. Shortly after, with Thomas Yates driving, it became the first car ever to drive upside down, using its fans to stick to an inverted surface. The same year, the company launched McMurtry Technology, its applied technology arm.
The Spéirling PURE by the Numbers
The production Spéirling PURE was revealed in July 2026 and uses 95 percent new components compared to the prototypes. A 100 kWh lithium-ion battery delivers 1,000 bhp, enough for 0 to 60 mph in 1.55 seconds and a top speed of 190 mph (306 km/h). The fan-based Downforce on Demand system generates 2,000 kg of downforce available at 0 mph, allowing the car to pull 3 g in corners and 3 g under braking.
Despite those numbers, McMurtry designed it to be easy to own. The car is plug-and-play and can run at a track day with just a driver and a competent friend, though full factory support is available. No more than 100 examples will be built, priced from £995,000 before taxes, shipping, and options.
A New Factory and a Second Business
McMurtry now operates from a brand-new production facility in the Cotswolds, a 2,700 m² (29,000 sq ft) site in Wotton-under-Edge, with a team of nearly 100 people. Alongside car production, McMurtry Technology works with blue-chip automotive and motorsport manufacturers, supplying its patented fan downforce systems, high-performance batteries, and electric powertrains, all the way up to full vehicle design and build. 2026 also brought the first McMurtry Owners Club event.
“Just ten years ago, there was only a handful of us, with a blank sheet of paper and the ambition to build a car company,” said Thomas Yates, McMurtry’s co-founder and Managing Director. “It’s been an incredible decade, but the next ten years will be even more exciting.”
McMurtry’s Second Decade Starts at Full Suction
Very few car companies go from a blank sheet to series production in a single decade, and fewer still do it by reviving an idea Formula 1 banned almost 50 years ago. McMurtry did both, turning Sir David’s offhand suggestion into a technology it now sells to other manufacturers. With the Spéirling PURE in production and the technology arm growing, the next ten years look set to be about more than one remarkable car.
McMurtry’s anniversary film is embedded right after this paragraph, and it is well worth a watch.
For a more detailed look at the McMurtry Spéirling PURE, please grab a look at the media gallery below.
Source
- McMurtry Automotive press release, “A Decade of Firsts: McMurtry Turns Ten Years Old” (October 2026)
