00:00 00;02;12;12 00;02;17;10 00;02;19;10 This incredible hand built supercar can go from 0-60 in under
00:15 3 seconds and can reach speeds of over 200mph, but it will cost you between $96,000 and $128,000
00:23 to buy one.
00:24 00;02;19;10 00;02;25;10 The Lucra was the brainchild of Luke Richards and he set up his California
00:41 based boutique car company to manufacture it.
00:44 00;02;25;10 00;02;35;10 The first prototype was in 2005 and the job of the car is to be
00:54 a lightweight, high performance, high powered car.
00:57 00;02;35;10 00;02;40;10 The aim of his design was to combine the speed and power of an American
01:01 muscle car with the maneuverability of a European sports car.
01:05 00;02;40;10 00;02;50;10 My father told me you could either have a car that was fast in the
01:11 straightaways or a car that was fast in the corners.
01:14 00;02;50;10 00;02;54;10 Back then the Camaros and the Mustangs were big horsepower and the
01:18 Lotuses and the European sports cars were lower horsepower Porsche, but lighter.
01:22 00;02;54;10 00;03;00;00 Growing up in England and growing up in America I kind of felt like
01:25 I had a passion for V8s but I also had a passion for lightweight sports cars.
01:29 00;03;00;00 00;03;04;00 I did what he said was impossible and we made both in one.
01:33 00;03;04;00 00;03;08;00 The lightweight body is made from carbon fibre, but it's not just
01:37 about how little weight there is, it's also about where it is.
01:41 00;03;08;00 00;03;14;00 We kept the car down around 2000 pounds, even with a V8, and we
01:45 made the car pretty stout.
01:46 We didn't skimp out on any of the safety or rigidity because that's equally important.
01:50 00;03;14;00 00;03;21;00 We also made the car tail heavy, so the weight distribution is
01:54 about 55 to the rear, but this gives it a nice mid-engine car feel.
01:59 It has a little bit of oversteer, it likes to drive through corners, it's really easy
02:03 to drive, really friendly, really difficult to spin, I mean really difficult to get out
02:09 of control.
02:10 00;03;21;00 00;03;29;00 We've tried it completely, and it makes for a very high performance car
02:14 that's really easy to drive by a novice, or a professional.
02:18 00;03;29;00 00;03;37;00 Each Lucra is built to order, and from start to finish the build
02:22 process takes around eight weeks.
02:24 00;03;37;00 00;03;41;00 We start off with a computer model of the chassis, all the tubing
02:28 is laser cut, all the sheet metal is laser cut.
02:31 By the chassis it gets made, it goes to powder coat, the body gets made at about the same
02:35 time.
02:36 The body is all in one piece, so it's very, very strong all by itself.
02:38 After we're done with the assembly, it goes out for alignment.
02:42 We like to custom and do all the testing, because we feel like this way they feel more
02:46 attached to the car.
02:47 We take them and the car to a track, and we just carefully warm it up, carefully lap it
02:53 slowly, and keep checking it, and lap it faster and faster and faster with a race driver to
02:58 help to train the customer how to drive it properly.
03:01 And by the end of the day the car is fully seated and broken in, the driver is fully
03:05 trained, and after that we put the car in paint and then interior.
03:08 At that point the car is back here, we have one final check over again, make sure everything
03:13 is how we want it, we reassemble it, and we ship it to the customer.
03:18 But aside from its incredible performance, the most rewarding part about designing the
03:23 car is the reaction it gets from others.
03:25 I've done a lot of things that I wouldn't do in a regular car.
03:29 It's won races, it's jumped bridges in Mexico, it's been in movies, it's been off road.
03:35 The main thing what it does, that most every other car I've been around doesn't do, is
03:40 it stops traffic everywhere it goes.
03:42 Everyone wants to talk about it.
03:43 If you go to the gas station, it'll take an hour.
03:47 Everywhere you get, it gets near you, everyone wants to talk about the car.
03:50 Everywhere you go it makes people smile.
03:52 Nobody is intimidated by it, nobody is threatened by it, they're just happy to see it and they
03:56 want to talk about it.
03:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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