RE: McMurtry Spéirling takes FOS Hillclimb record

[Unreal]

ghost83 said:

Unreal said:

ICE cars will be produced until at least 2030 so it's fair to assume they'll still be going a decade later. After that, they'll still be in use, selectively, just like horses and steam engines. If they're relegated to the level of traction engines, so what? It won't affect most people alive today. I'm pretty optimistic for the medium term, not least because there are an awful lot of very rich individuals who will ensure their hobby continues to be enjoyed. I'm also not sure how poor people are supposed to get about when there is no electric equivalent of a £1000 short MOT you can fix on your drive banger. It's a nice pipe dream that everyone can be swanning about in environmentally friendly EVs in a couple of years but anyone with a brain knows it can't happen.

Of course, the EV bubble may have burst like the diesel bubble by 2030, and people could be celebrating a new record set by a hydrogen powered car and the banning of EVs on environmental grounds. Perhaps it will hiss rather than whine. Funny how quickly things can change.

I don’t think they will you know! More and more manufacturers are giving a date of around 2024/2025 when they move towards fully electric, it will only be the supercar stuff that will run that long

OK , for argument's sake let's say that you can't buy a new ICE car after 2025. Most will come with a five year warranty so will need be run until 2029.
But more importantly, how long do you think it will take before the millions of motorists in cheap old ICE cars can migrate to equivalent electric vehicles?

I'm sure you could ban all petrol cars from 2025 and you can disincentivise their use in all sorts of ways, but there are consequences, including the social factors I've highlighted and also the little matter of a reduction in tax revenue. There's no question which way the wind is blowing. I just don't think it will blow ICE cars away for quite some time.

Edited by Unreal on Monday 27th June 17:26

[CDP]

samoht said:

In terms of 'what else could the Speirling do', this has a 60 kWh battery and weighs 1000kg, whereas the ID R is 45 kWh and 1100kg. So presumably it could effectively challenge any of the times the VW has set.

That did Pikes Peak in just under 8 minutes and Nurburgring in just over 6, both of which seem eminently beatable by the McMurtry.

With 60 kWh and 1000hp it could run at full power for a continuous ~5 minutes, however once you add in 10-20% regen and consider time spent off-throttle when slowing down and turning, you're probably looking at around 10 minutes 'flat out' depending on the course.

The TT course record is around 16 minutes so perhaps a bit longer than optimum, I imagine it could have a decent shot but wouldn't be able to run full power all the way around.

Putting that beast around the TT course it's not the car's life expectancy to worry about.

[Equus]

otolith said:

If the FIA has indeed put a blanket technical regulation of that sort across all motorsport, we need more motorsport happening outside its remit.

It's been there for years. It's rule 5.20.10 in the current RAC Blue Book, but any FIA-affiliated national governing body has to have a similar rule.

In fairness, if you look at the amount of st that the McMurty was kicking up behind itself, you really wouldn't want to run behind one on any sort of circuit racing. I suppose they could relax the rule for hillclimbs and other 'solo' competition, but all it would achieve would be to create an 'elite' class that only a handful of people could afford to compete in.

[CanAm]

Equus said:

More importantly, there is a blanket rule for all racing classes that states; "...any specific part of the car influencing its aerodynamic performance must remain immobile in relation to the vehicle", effectively banning fans or active aerodynamics of any sort from race cars.

You couldn't even run it in Sports Libre or similar on hillclimbs, which is a pity, because it would murder any current opposition.

Apart from DRS in F1.

[otolith]

Equus said:

otolith said:

If the FIA has indeed put a blanket technical regulation of that sort across all motorsport, we need more motorsport happening outside its remit.

It's been there for years. It's rule 5.20.10 in the current RAC Blue Book, but any FIA-affiliated national governing body has to have a similar rule.

In fairness, if you look at the amount of st that the McMurty was kicking up behind itself, you really wouldn't want to run behind one on any sort of circuit racing. I suppose they could relax the rule for hillclimbs and other 'solo' competition, but all it would achieve would be to create an 'elite' class that only a handful of people could afford to compete in.

F1 makes an exception for DRS, so I should think it would be perfectly possible for a series to except some other movable aerodynamic device - however, active aero is nothing terribly unorthodox for a road car, and blocking such developments through racing seems a bit luddite.

[thecremeegg]

I assume the F1 cars can try and set a time now right given that the electric cars are allowed to go faster?

[Equus]

otolith said:

F1 makes an exception for DRS, so I should think it would be perfectly possible for a series to except some other movable aerodynamic device - however, active aero is nothing terribly unorthodox for a road car, and blocking such developments through racing seems a bit luddite.

F1 is (literally) a law unto itself - though it also has probably the most complex set of regs of any formula.

I agree that blocking developments is luddite - and almost defeats the main technical benefits of racing altogether - but it's been the case since at least the 1980's. Skirts, twin chassis, active suspension, active aerodynamics... pretty much everything that's come along that might have had a genuine benefit to road car design has been banned in racing.

[Zumbruk]

otolith said:

F1 makes an exception for DRS, so I should think it would be perfectly possible for a series to except some other movable aerodynamic device - however, active aero is nothing terribly unorthodox for a road car, and blocking such developments through racing seems a bit luddite.

It was brought in in the late 60’s when wings were attached on large uprights and directly to the suspension. Some teams designed units that could be feathered at speed along long straights and by a simple attachment to the brake pedal be dipped going into corners, much in the same way as the modern DRS system works. This was at the time deemed dangerous and indeed it was. The aerodynamic loadings on these structures was never fully understood or tested to the Nth degree and this lead to many crashes as a result of wing failures.

Fan cars have been tried before;

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/banned-tech-bra...

[anonymous-user]

Max_Torque said:

J4CKO said:

Interesting Max that you think it was perhaps pegged back a bit.

it's early days yet and i'm sure the team don't want a very public crash when they find the (very difficult to find) limit, so yes, i think its safe to say it's a way off its ultimate capability

J4CKO said:

I wonder if it loses downforce, its like your Hoover and they have to stick a new bag in it ?

It will absolutely loose downforce as road speed climbs because the required mass flow of the suction fan will increase at least linearly with speed, thanks to the swept area of a porous tarmac (and probably far more steeply due to sealing issues). It's why its got massive traction off the line because at zero speed the fan has time to suck most of the air out the gap under the car, but as it starts moving more and more air arrives into that gap in any given unit of time, so suction must reduce.

J4CKO said:

What do they do with it now ? Is there a market for a massively fast, single seater Batmobile lookalike ? Im sold, its fantastic, its British, just not sure what the motivation was/is ? Showcase, road car ?

I imagine they can sell a couple to rich people as a new "toy" but really this has no commercial validity. DF for the road is un-usable and dangerous, and a single seat car is simply not what consumers want because it just doesn't fit with peoples lifestyles

I saw Chilton being interviewed yesterday and I’m sure he said they had set a limiter of 150mph on it.

[FourWheelDrift]

garyhun said:

I saw Chilton being interviewed yesterday and I’m sure he said they had set a limiter of 150mph on it.

Was on the limiter for 3 seconds on one straight I think.

[Equus]

Zumbruk said:

Fan cars have been tried before;

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/banned-tech-bra...

Such is Gordon Murray's talent for self-promotion that you might be fooled into thinking that he came up with the fan car.

He did not. He came up with a way of justifying it to the scrutineers (by claiming, with some very dodgy maths, that its primary purpose was cooling).

As your linked article mentions almost as an afterthought, this was the first fan car, built 8 years before the BT46B:

Edited by Equus on Monday 27th June 16:31

[CanAm]

garyhun said:

I saw Chilton being interviewed yesterday and I’m sure he said they had set a limiter of 150mph on it.

I heard that mentioned more than once. It hit 149.x over the finishing line. I think there was at least one car faster, but that speed off the startline is a big advantage.

[anonymous-user]

CanAm said:

garyhun said:

I saw Chilton being interviewed yesterday and I’m sure he said they had set a limiter of 150mph on it.

I heard that mentioned more than once. It hit 149.x over the finishing line. I think there was at least one car faster, but that speed off the startline is a big advantage.

It was otherworldly off the line.

[JD2329]

Astonishing, verging on ludicrous.
It's all a bit weird for me. The wonder is in the speed alone. I know it's being driven by a human being, yet with no audible indication of driver input, it could almost be some unmanned military reconnaissance vehicle. I wouldn't feel particualry interested in watching cars like this race - and I hope that's not where we end up.

[Welshbeef]

JD2329 said:

Astonishing, verging on ludicrous.
It's all a bit weird for me. The wonder is in the speed alone. I know it's being driven by a human being, yet with no audible indication of driver input, it could almost be some unmanned military reconnaissance vehicle. I wouldn't feel particualry interested in watching cars like this race - and I hope that's not where we end up.

Realistically how could you overtake? The speeds would be so high / it would surely only be driver error of the leading car that would enable a pass

[big_rob_sydney]

All these small steps in EV development are like nails in the ICE coffin. And it won't end here. Solid state batteries. Super capacitors. Etc. Musk has said batteries improve by around 5% year on year.

I saw the "contrail" behind this thing, and just thought I'd never seen another car go that fast before. Truly reminded me of some kind of jet plane. Very impressive. Who knows, maybe one day we'll have flying cars that are battery powered.

Wouldn't that be something...

[anonymous-user]

otolith said:

What this achieves is that it looks more fun than anything electric we've yet seen from the motoring establishment.

Doesn't look at all "fun" to me tbh. It looks bloodyhard work and looks like it will kill you at a drop of a hat!

I'd happily take my i3 over the Spurting for any road drive!! :-)

[WhyOne]

big_rob_sydney said:

...

I saw the "contrail" behind this thing....

Not a contrail (water vapor), but dust from the track surface sucked up by the two fans and ejected out of the back of the car.

[Dr Nookie]

I don't get the complaints about the noise at all. I'm as big a fan of proper ICE as any one, and have yet to see or hear an electric car that really appeals, but this really made me take note.
I thought it sounded fantastic in a Knight Rider type, sound of the future way.

I'd be very happy having one of those for weekend blasts, despite it being totally incompatible with all the other traffic on the road.

[otolith]

Max_Torque said:

otolith said:

What this achieves is that it looks more fun than anything electric we've yet seen from the motoring establishment.

Doesn't look at all "fun" to me tbh. It looks bloodyhard work and looks like it will kill you at a drop of a hat!

I'd happily take my i3 over the Spurting for any road drive!! :-)

To be fair, this was once a site for TVR fanciers

No doubt at all that the i3 is a better car, in the same sense that my E class is a better car than my Elise, but you wouldn't buy an i3 as a toy.