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
00:00This incredible hand-built supercar can go from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds and can reach speeds
00:17of over 200 miles per hour, but it will cost you between $96,000 and $128,000 to buy one.
00:24The Lucra is exciting, it's easy to drive, it gives you a lot of confidence, it inspires
00:30some really daring manoeuvres perhaps, but it's just fun and everyone who gets out of
00:35it has a 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.
00:52The 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 the European sports car.
01:06My father told me you could either have a car that was faster in the straightaways or a car
01:12that was faster in the corners.
01:14Back then the Camaros and the Mustangs were a big horsepower and the Lotuses and the European
01:19sports cars were a 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,
01:32we made both in one.
01:33The 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 2,000 pounds, 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 it completely, and it makes for a very high performance car
02:14that's really easy to drive by a novice, and we're professional.
02:19Each Lucra is built to order, and from start to finish the build process takes around eight
02:24weeks.
02:25We start off with the 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 body
02:34gets made at about the same time, the body is all one piece, so it's very very strong
02:38all by itself.
02:39After we're done with the assembly, it goes out for alignment, we like the customer to do all
02:43the testing, because we feel like, this way they feel more attached to the car.
02:47We take them and the car to the track, and we just carefully warm it up, carefully lap
02:53it slowly, and keep checking it, and lap it faster and faster and faster with a race driver
02:58to help 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, at that point the car is back here, we have one final check
03:12over again, make sure everything is how we want it, we reassemble it, and we ship it
03:17to 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 jumped
03:31bridges in Mexico, it's been in movies, it's been off-road, but the main thing what it does,
03:37most every other car I've been around doesn't do, is it stops traffic everywhere it goes.
03:43Everyone wants to talk about it, if you go to the gas station, it'll take an hour, it's
03:47just everywhere you get, it gets near you, wants to talk about the car, everywhere you
03:50go 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.
03:57They're just happy to see it and they want to talk about it.