News

McMurtry Spéirling is coming this summer

There are startups that promise to change the world, and then there’s McMurtry Automotive, which decided the best way to announce itself was to obliterate a 23-year-old Formula 1 record at Goodwood with a vacuum-cleaner-sized electric missile. Now the British firm is taking the next logical step: moving out of the garage-project phase and into a purpose-built factory in Gloucestershire to start building the real thing.

McMurtry Spéirling is coming this summer

The new site in Wotton-under-Edge covers roughly a square mile, which is an absurdly large footprint for a company that builds a single-seat electric hypercar smaller than a Honda Civic. Production of the Spéirling Pure is set to begin any moment now, with the first customer car scheduled to leave the factory this summer. For a company that only a few years ago was known mostly for YouTube-breaking hillclimb runs, that’s a huge milestone.

And McMurtry isn’t stopping at just one outrageously fast toy. Its existing headquarters nearby will become an R&D hub for a new offshoot called McMurtry Technology, a contract-engineering business already claiming “high-profile clients” and seven-figure revenues. Translation: the same engineers who figured out how to make a 1000-horsepower electric fan car stick to the road are now available for hire.

Still the Hillclimb King

The Spéirling’s legend was sealed in 2022, when Max Chilton drove a prototype up the Goodwood hill in 39.08 seconds, smashing the long-standing record set by a McLaren Formula 1 car in 1999. That wasn’t just quick—it was physics-bending. The car’s downforce-generating fan system effectively allows it to glue itself to the asphalt, regardless of speed.

What’s coming off the new production line is even more unhinged. Customer cars will get revised motors sending a full 1000 horsepower to the rear wheels, fed by a 60-kWh battery pack that’s 15 percent lighter than before. McMurtry says kerb weight will be under 1000 kilograms—roughly what a Mazda Miata weighs, except this one launches to 62 mph in 1.5 seconds and keeps pulling to more than 190 mph.

Small Car, Big Humans

The Spéirling Pure measures just 3.45 meters long and seats exactly one person, but McMurtry insists it can fit drivers up to 6 feet 7 inches tall and weighing up to 146 kilograms. That’s either impressive packaging or proof that British engineers are really, really good at Tetris.

Only 100 examples will be built, each starting at £995,000 before taxes, delivery, and the sort of options you probably don’t want to ask about. That puts it firmly in the ultra-exclusive hypercar club—but unlike most million-pound toys, this one isn’t trying to be elegant, luxurious, or even especially pretty. It’s trying to be the fastest thing you’ve ever experienced.

With a new factory coming online and customer deliveries about to begin, McMurtry is moving from internet sensation to actual manufacturer. The Spéirling is no longer just a record-setting prototype—it’s a production car with a production line. And if it performs on the road anything like it did at Goodwood, the hypercar world is about to get very, very nervous.

Source: McMurtry Automotive

News

Ferrari EV with Apple technology

Jony Ive Designs the Interior of the Ferrari Luce—and It Might Be the Most Radical Cabin Maranello Has Ever Built

Apple never built its own car, but Ferrari just got the next best thing.

After quietly killing its decade-long automotive project, Apple’s greatest design export—Sir Jony Ive—has resurfaced in a far more fitting home: Maranello. The legendary designer behind the iPhone, iPad, and Mac has crafted the interior of Ferrari’s first electric vehicle, the Ferrari Luce, and the result looks less like a traditional supercar cockpit and more like something that escaped from Cupertino’s skunkworks.

Ferrari reached out to Ive shortly after he left Apple in 2019 to form LoveFrom with fellow industrial-design icon Marc Newson. Two years of negotiations followed before the partnership was finalized in 2021. Now, with the Luce set for a formal reveal in 2026, we’re finally seeing what happens when Ferrari’s mechanical obsession meets Apple’s minimalist religion.

And it’s weird—in a very Ferrari way.

Analog Soul, Digital Brain

The Luce’s interior doesn’t abandon Ferrari tradition. Instead, it remixes it. There’s a digital display, sure, but it’s surrounded by a forest of physical switches, rotary knobs, and tactile controls. Ive and Newson deliberately resisted the Tesla-style slab of glass approach.

The centerpiece is a 10.2-inch OLED screen that rotates and responds to touch, but it doesn’t dominate the cabin. Ferrari still wants you driving, not scrolling. Volume is controlled by a physical glass dial. Large, solid switches flank the screen. The layout adapts to what the driver is doing, but it always keeps the car—not the software—front and center.

“It was very clear to us that we had to find as many ways as possible to intuitively and physically connect with the interface,” Ive said.

In other words: Ferrari drivers don’t want to swipe—they want to feel.

A Steering Wheel From Another Century

The most shocking element isn’t a screen at all. It’s the steering wheel.

Gone is Ferrari’s current spaceship-style yoke loaded with capacitive buttons. In its place is a three-spoke wheel inspired by the classic Nardi designs of the 1950s and 60s—complete with wood trim. It weighs 400 grams less than Ferrari’s current wheel, and its spokes are made from 100-percent recycled aluminum.

This is retro-futurism at its finest: old-school aesthetics hiding next-gen engineering. It’s also an unmistakable statement that Ferrari wants the Luce to feel like a Ferrari, even without an engine.

Apple Obsession, Ferrari Execution

If you think Apple sweats the details, Ferrari just went further.

The seat rails—the parts you never see—are molded and anodized. There are more than 40 pieces of Gorilla Glass surrounding the driver. Even the vents are sculpted like precision instruments rather than plastic afterthoughts.

And then there’s the key.

Yes, Ferrari redesigned the key.

It features an e-ink display, and when you insert it into the dashboard, the yellow glow visually “flows” from the key into the car. It serves no mechanical purpose whatsoever—and that’s exactly why it exists. It’s pure Ive: design as an emotional experience.

Designing in a World of Rules

Ive admits the car world was a shock.

“I’ve never worked in an area that’s so regulated,” he said. “Some of it is great… but some of it drives you crazy.”

That tension—between creativity and safety, beauty and bureaucracy—shapes every inch of the Luce. Ferrari’s first electric car isn’t just a technological pivot. It’s a philosophical one.

Marc Newson summed it up best:
“Jony and I share a really, really deep interest in automotive stuff… it’s probably a hobby for both of us.”

And it shows.

What Is the Ferrari Luce?

Ferrari hasn’t released specs, pricing, or even confirmed the rumored May preview. What we do know is that the Luce will be the brand’s first fully electric production car, with its official debut planned for the second half of 2026.

Whether it starts a full EV lineup or remains a one-off experiment is still unclear. But one thing is certain:

This is not Ferrari reluctantly going electric.
This is Ferrari using electricity as an excuse to reinvent itself.

And with Jony Ive holding the pen, the future of Ferrari suddenly looks a lot like the future Apple never got to build.

Source: Ferrari

Auctions

How a 2005 Mercedes-AMG CL65 Became a $300,000 Collectible

By the mid-2000s, Mercedes-AMG was in a very particular mood. Not the restrained, Nürburgring-lap-time-chasing AMG we know today, but the slightly unhinged, torque-drunk division that believed the correct answer to every engineering question was “add two more cylinders and a pair of turbochargers.” The CL65 AMG was the purest expression of that mindset, and one impossibly preserved example has just proven that the world is finally ready to pay for it.

This Alabaster White 2005 CL65 AMG crossed the auction block for more than $300,000, a figure that would have sounded ridiculous a decade ago but now feels eerily logical. When new, this coupe already carried a stratospheric $182,280 sticker, which inflation turns into roughly the same $300K it just fetched. In other words, this car didn’t just hold its value—it completed a 20-year financial round trip back to its original altitude.

That alone would be impressive. The real story is what this thing is.

A Bentley in Disguise, a Supercar at Heart

Under the pillarless, yacht-like body of the C215 CL-Class sits AMG’s most excessive production engine: a twin-turbocharged 6.0-liter V12. Officially, it made 612 horsepower and 1,000 Nm (738 lb-ft) of torque, although everyone knew those numbers were conservative. In 2005, that put this Mercedes in the same power neighborhood as a Ferrari Enzo—except the CL65 could also heat, cool, and massage your back while doing it.

All of that thrust flows through a five-speed AMG SpeedShift automatic to the rear wheels, because at the time Mercedes hadn’t yet invented a transmission brave enough to handle that much torque with more ratios. Even so, the CL65 could catapult its nearly two-ton body forward with an effortlessness that bordered on absurd.

And yet, this wasn’t some stripped-out AMG special. It was a full-blown luxury coupe, complete with Active Body Control suspension, cross-drilled AMG brakes, and a cabin that feels more like a private jet than a sports car.

The Spec That Shouldn’t Work—but Does

This particular car was ordered new by Michael Fux, the philanthropist and serious collector known for his bold specifications, and it shows. The exterior is finished in Alabaster White, paired with a Java leather interior and chestnut wood trim. It’s an unusual combination, slightly flamboyant, and completely unforgettable—exactly the kind of thing that turns a production AMG into a one-off-feeling collector car two decades later.

The condition is where things really get wild. The odometer reads just 3,300 miles (5,300 km), which means this CL65 has averaged roughly 165 miles per year since new. That explains why it presents today as a near-museum piece, right down to its Michelin Pilot Sport tires with 2024 date codes and its still-immaculate interior.

And yes, it’s loaded. Heated and ventilated multi-contour AMG sport seats with massage, Keyless Go, Bose surround sound, COMAND navigation, Parktronic, a power rear sunshade, and even a trunk-mounted CD changer for those who miss the golden age of physical media. The instrument cluster tops out at 220 mph, a subtle reminder that this was never meant to be a mere luxury cruiser.

Why $300,000 Suddenly Makes Sense

For years, the CL65 AMG lived in the shadow of more obvious icons: the McLaren-engined SLR, the SL65 roadster, and the modern hyper-AMGs that followed. But tastes are changing. Collectors are rediscovering the era when AMG was gloriously unfiltered, building cars that made no apologies for their size, weight, or fuel consumption—only for their lack of restraint.

The CL65 represents the peak of that philosophy. A V12, twin turbos, no pillars, no compromises, and enough torque to bend space-time. Combine that with ultra-low mileage, a high-profile original owner, and a rare spec, and you get a perfect storm for value.

In 2005, this car was an outrageous indulgence. In 2026, it’s a rolling monument to a lost era of Mercedes-AMG madness—and now, officially, a six-figure collectible.

And honestly? That feels exactly right.

Source: Bring a Trailer

Cars and catalogues