This hand built supercar combines American muscle and European manoeuvrability to reach speeds of up to 200 miles per hour. The Lucra – which goes from 0 to sixty in just under three seconds - can be yours for just over $99,000. The dream car, which has a V8 engine but still weighs just 2,000 pounds, was conceived and designed by Luke Richards from his luxury showroom in California, USA. After being brought up in both Europe and the United States he had a passion for both muscle and lightweight sports cars so decided on the concept. Despite the Lucra’s power and the intricacies of its design the car can be customised and built for prospective customers in just eight weeks. From his headquarters in Los Angeles and Santa Monica Luke weights the Lucra at the back meaning it handles well even at top speeds. But aside from the Lucra’s incredible performance – Luke says the most rewarding part about designing the car is the reaction it gets from others.
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MotorTranscript
00:00And can reach speeds over 200mph but it will cost you between $96-$128,000 to buy one.
00:23Luke is exciting, it's easy to drive, it gives you a lot of confidence, it inspires some
00:30really daring manoeuvres and craps, but it's just fun. Everyone that gets out of it has
00:35a huge smile on their face.
00:37The Lucra was the brainchild of Luke Richards and he set up his California based boutique
00:42car company to manufacture it.
00:44I first came up with the idea for the Lucra car in 2005, we got our first prototype in
00:512006. The job of the car is to be a lightweight, high performance, high powered car.
00:58The aim of his design was to combine the speed and power of an American muscle car with the
01:03manoeuvrability of a European sports car.
01:06My father told me you could either have a car that was fast in the straightaways or
01:12a car that was fast in the corners. Back then the Camaros and the Mustangs were big horsepower
01:18and the Lotuses and the European sports cars were lower horsepower Porsche, but lighter.
01:22Growing up in England and growing up in America, I kind of felt like, I kind of had a passion
01:26for V8s, but I also had a passion for lightweight sports cars, so I did what he said was impossible
01:32and we made both in one.
01:34The lightweight body is made from carbon fibre, but it's not just about how little weight
01:38there is, it's also about where it is.
01:41We kept the car down around 2000lbs, even with a V8, and we made the car pretty stout.
01:46We didn't skimp out on any of the safety or rigidity, because that's equally important.
01:50We also made the car tail heavy, so the weight distribution is about 55 to the rear, but
01:57this gives it a nice mid-engine car feel.
01:59It has a little bit of oversteer, it likes to drive through corners, it's really easy
02:03to drive, really friendly, really difficult to spin, I mean, really difficult to get out
02:09of control, and we've tried completely, and it makes for a very high performance car that's
02:15really easy to drive by a novice, or a professional.
02:19Each Lucra is built to order, and from start to finish, the build process takes around
02:23eight weeks.
02:24We start off with a computer model of the chassis, all the tubing is laser cut, all
02:29the sheet metal is laser cut, by the chassis it gets made, it goes to powder coat, the
02:34body gets made at about the same time, the body is all in one piece, so it's very, very
02:37strong all by itself.
02:38After we're done with the assembly, it goes out for alignment, we like to custom and do
02:43all the testing, because we feel like this way they feel more attached to the car.
02:47We take them and the car to a track, and we just carefully warm it up, carefully lap it
02:53slowly, and keep checking it, and lap it faster and faster and faster with a race driver to
02:58help, to train the customer how to drive it properly, and by the end of the day, the car
03:03is fully seated and broken in, the driver is fully trained, and after that we put the
03:07car in paint, and then interior.
03:09At that point the car is back here, we have one final check over again, make sure everything
03:14is how we want it, we reassemble it, and we ship it to the customer.
03:18But aside from its incredible performance, the most rewarding part about designing the
03:23car is the reaction it gets from others.
03:25It's done a lot of things that I wouldn't do in a regular car, it's won races, it's
03:30jumped bridges in Mexico, it's been in movies, it's been off road.
03:36The main thing what it does, that most every other car I've been around doesn't do, is
03:40it stops traffic everywhere it goes.
03:42Everyone wants to talk about it, if you go to the gas station, it'll take an hour, it's
03:46just everywhere it gets near you it wants to talk about the car.
03:50Everywhere you go it makes people smile.
03:52Nobody's intimidated by it, nobody's threatened by it, they're just happy to see it and they
03:56want to talk about it.