SMALL WONDER
WHEN IT FINALLY POPS OVER AVON RISE AND TUCKS into Quarry Bend, it’s not what I was expecting. But I was expecting that. I’ve raced here at Castle Combe circuit, Wiltshire, in snorty stuff like Caterhams and TVRs and I knew the all-electric McMurtry Spéirling wasn’t going to sound anything like them, but when it appears it doesn’t sound much like any electric racer I’ve heard before either.
Its approach was heralded by a constant hum and it was that constancy that was the first discombobulating detail. I thought it was the electric motor and expected its pitch to drop as the little black car slowed and dived for the apex, but it didn’t. The reason it didn’t is because it was the sound of the suction fan of the Spéirling’s active downforce system.
The system also explains the second confusing aspect of the pass, which is what appears to be steam coming from the rear of the car as it corners and then accelerates away. It isn’t steam, it’s dust – and a surprising amount of it – being sucked from the surface of what looks like a clean race circuit.
These are the oddest details of a car that is itself unlike anything else I
