The McMurtry Spéirling is the first car in the world to DRIVE UPSIDE DOWN

No, it’s not an April Fool’s gag, and yes, they really did it. For as long as Top Gear can remember, the old adage that ‘an F1 car can drive upside down’ has been nothing more than a passing joke. Turns out, McMurtry isn’t laughing.

Because it’s only gone and done it. Fresh from smashing Top Gear's 20-year lap record, McMurtry sent the incredible, record-breaking, 1,000bhp fan-assisted Spéirling up a ramp, and drove it upside down. Broke a new record and blew many tiny minds in the process.

While you piece together said broken, shattered tiny mind – literally, punchy, enormously powerful downforce electric car + quite upside down – here’s McMurtry MD and co-founder Thomas Yates. “That was just a fantastic day in the office,” he said, in perhaps the world’s greatest understatement. “Strapping in and driving inverted was a completely surreal experience. The 2,000kg of downforce that the fan system can generate is truly astonishing to experience.

“This demonstration was an exciting proof of concept using a small purpose-built rig, but is perhaps just the beginning of what’s possible,” he added. ‘Purpose built rig,’ you cry?

Yup. Yates gunned the Spéirling up a ramp and then onto a special purpose-built platform… which then rotated to fully invert the hypercar. It then stayed glued to this platform via the Spéirling’s ‘downforce-on-demand’ system, which of course, doesn’t need speed to operate. It’s basically a vacuum that in normal, human operation allows it to lap circuits in record-breaking speed – once again, we point you to the whole smashing Top Gear’s 20-year lap record thing.

Here, it was of course used to stop it from… falling down. “Once fully inverted, Thomas drove forward, entirely unsupported,” said McMurtry.

“With a longer inverted track or a suitable tunnel, we may be able to drive even further,” Yates added. Even with the amount of motorsport scalps this thing carries around its slender waist, we suspect at least one of you will have ‘circumnavigate the Moon’ on their Spéirling Unbelievable Records bingo card.

Come on then, Massive Tunnel owners - anyone got one long and wide enough for TG to have a go?