The LC470 is
handmade in San Marcos, California by skilled craftsmen whose only goal
in life is to scare the living hell out of you. Bwahahaha! For the most
part, they succeeded.
There is nothing else in the world quite like a Lucra. Maybe it’ll remind you of a Shelby Cobra 427, or an angry, angry Lister. There’s a car company in Lebanon, New Hampshire called Dragon Motors that makes a similar-looking product but we haven’t driven that.
This car is the product of a guy named Luke Richards, who grew up alternately in England and the United States. In England there are lightweight cars like Lotus. In the U.S. there are muscle cars. The idea here is to combine the best of both those disparate worlds.
For a while Richards was an exotic car dealer. Then he discovered the Beck Spyder on a trip to Brazil, where those cars were made. From that he met Chuck Beck who, at the time, was making the Beck Lister. Richards thought the Beck Lister was really something but wasn’t refined enough for contemporary exotic car buyers. So he started his own company to make this, a refined scream on four wheels.
“We made a car that weighs the same as the Lotus but has the power of a big V8 muscle car,” Richards said.
That would be a 2000-pound tube-frame car with a carbon-fiber body powered by a Chevy 505-hp Chevy LS7 engine. It’s like having your own Saturn V but with nicer fenders.
- See more at: http://autoweek.com/article/car-reviews/lucra-lc470-driving-impression#sthash.YtJNvwt6.dpuf
There is nothing else in the world quite like a Lucra. Maybe it’ll remind you of a Shelby Cobra 427, or an angry, angry Lister. There’s a car company in Lebanon, New Hampshire called Dragon Motors that makes a similar-looking product but we haven’t driven that.
This car is the product of a guy named Luke Richards, who grew up alternately in England and the United States. In England there are lightweight cars like Lotus. In the U.S. there are muscle cars. The idea here is to combine the best of both those disparate worlds.
For a while Richards was an exotic car dealer. Then he discovered the Beck Spyder on a trip to Brazil, where those cars were made. From that he met Chuck Beck who, at the time, was making the Beck Lister. Richards thought the Beck Lister was really something but wasn’t refined enough for contemporary exotic car buyers. So he started his own company to make this, a refined scream on four wheels.
“We made a car that weighs the same as the Lotus but has the power of a big V8 muscle car,” Richards said.
That would be a 2000-pound tube-frame car with a carbon-fiber body powered by a Chevy 505-hp Chevy LS7 engine. It’s like having your own Saturn V but with nicer fenders.
- See more at: http://autoweek.com/article/car-reviews/lucra-lc470-driving-impression#sthash.YtJNvwt6.dpuf
Lucra Cars is a boutique car developer and manufacturer with a passion
to create the next American supercars. Having made quite a splash last
year with the rollout of the Lucra LC470, whose motto is "STREET LEGAL –
but just barely," the company has just revealed pics and a bit of
information about its Bugatti killer, the L148.
The LC470 is
handmade in San Marcos, California by skilled craftsmen whose only goal
in life is to scare the living hell out of you. Bwahahaha! For the most
part, they succeeded.
There is nothing else in the world quite like a Lucra. Maybe it’ll remind you of a Shelby Cobra 427, or an angry, angry Lister. There’s a car company in Lebanon, New Hampshire called Dragon Motors that makes a similar-looking product but we haven’t driven that.
This car is the product of a guy named Luke Richards, who grew up alternately in England and the United States. In England there are lightweight cars like Lotus. In the U.S. there are muscle cars. The idea here is to combine the best of both those disparate worlds.
For a while Richards was an exotic car dealer. Then he discovered the Beck Spyder on a trip to Brazil, where those cars were made. From that he met Chuck Beck who, at the time, was making the Beck Lister. Richards thought the Beck Lister was really something but wasn’t refined enough for contemporary exotic car buyers. So he started his own company to make this, a refined scream on four wheels.
“We made a car that weighs the same as the Lotus but has the power of a big V8 muscle car,” Richards said.
That would be a 2000-pound tube-frame car with a carbon-fiber body powered by a Chevy 505-hp Chevy LS7 engine. It’s like having your own Saturn V but with nicer fenders.
- See more at: http://autoweek.com/article/car-reviews/lucra-lc470-driving-impression#sthash.YtJNvwt6.dpuf
There is nothing else in the world quite like a Lucra. Maybe it’ll remind you of a Shelby Cobra 427, or an angry, angry Lister. There’s a car company in Lebanon, New Hampshire called Dragon Motors that makes a similar-looking product but we haven’t driven that.
This car is the product of a guy named Luke Richards, who grew up alternately in England and the United States. In England there are lightweight cars like Lotus. In the U.S. there are muscle cars. The idea here is to combine the best of both those disparate worlds.
For a while Richards was an exotic car dealer. Then he discovered the Beck Spyder on a trip to Brazil, where those cars were made. From that he met Chuck Beck who, at the time, was making the Beck Lister. Richards thought the Beck Lister was really something but wasn’t refined enough for contemporary exotic car buyers. So he started his own company to make this, a refined scream on four wheels.
“We made a car that weighs the same as the Lotus but has the power of a big V8 muscle car,” Richards said.
That would be a 2000-pound tube-frame car with a carbon-fiber body powered by a Chevy 505-hp Chevy LS7 engine. It’s like having your own Saturn V but with nicer fenders.
- See more at: http://autoweek.com/article/car-reviews/lucra-lc470-driving-impression#sthash.YtJNvwt6.dpuf
The LC470 is
handmade in San Marcos, California by skilled craftsmen whose only goal
in life is to scare the living hell out of you. Bwahahaha! For the most
part, they succeeded.
There is nothing else in the world quite like a Lucra. Maybe it’ll remind you of a Shelby Cobra 427, or an angry, angry Lister. There’s a car company in Lebanon, New Hampshire called Dragon Motors that makes a similar-looking product but we haven’t driven that.
This car is the product of a guy named Luke Richards, who grew up alternately in England and the United States. In England there are lightweight cars like Lotus. In the U.S. there are muscle cars. The idea here is to combine the best of both those disparate worlds.
For a while Richards was an exotic car dealer. Then he discovered the Beck Spyder on a trip to Brazil, where those cars were made. From that he met Chuck Beck who, at the time, was making the Beck Lister. Richards thought the Beck Lister was really something but wasn’t refined enough for contemporary exotic car buyers. So he started his own company to make this, a refined scream on four wheels.
“We made a car that weighs the same as the Lotus but has the power of a big V8 muscle car,” Richards said.
That would be a 2000-pound tube-frame car with a carbon-fiber body powered by a Chevy 505-hp Chevy LS7 engine. It’s like having your own Saturn V but with nicer fenders.
- See more at: http://autoweek.com/article/car-reviews/lucra-lc470-driving-impression#sthash.YtJNvwt6.dpuf
There is nothing else in the world quite like a Lucra. Maybe it’ll remind you of a Shelby Cobra 427, or an angry, angry Lister. There’s a car company in Lebanon, New Hampshire called Dragon Motors that makes a similar-looking product but we haven’t driven that.
This car is the product of a guy named Luke Richards, who grew up alternately in England and the United States. In England there are lightweight cars like Lotus. In the U.S. there are muscle cars. The idea here is to combine the best of both those disparate worlds.
For a while Richards was an exotic car dealer. Then he discovered the Beck Spyder on a trip to Brazil, where those cars were made. From that he met Chuck Beck who, at the time, was making the Beck Lister. Richards thought the Beck Lister was really something but wasn’t refined enough for contemporary exotic car buyers. So he started his own company to make this, a refined scream on four wheels.
“We made a car that weighs the same as the Lotus but has the power of a big V8 muscle car,” Richards said.
That would be a 2000-pound tube-frame car with a carbon-fiber body powered by a Chevy 505-hp Chevy LS7 engine. It’s like having your own Saturn V but with nicer fenders.
- See more at: http://autoweek.com/article/car-reviews/lucra-lc470-driving-impression#sthash.YtJNvwt6.dpuf
Lucra
Cars was founded on the concept that you could build a car that featured
both extreme light weight and large V8 power. In addition, the Lucra
LC470 features fantastic weight distribution and great ergonomics. See
for yourself, and you'll be amazed.
The world of hyperpower sport cars has gone wild in the past few years,
with several street-legal production cars joining the 2.5/10 club – a
0-60 mph (100 km/h) time of 2.5 seconds and a 10 second quarter mile
(0.4 km) time. Entry into this elite club is not simply a question of
power. Rather it represents achieving a superb balance between power,
transmission, suspension, and the ability to couple immense torque to
the tarmac.
One of the charter members of the 2.5/10 club is the Lucra LC470 (shown above), clocked by Top Speed
magazine at 2.5/9.1, with a 60-0 braking distance of 93 ft (28 m) and a
skidpad acceleration of 1.3 Gs. Where the LC470 misses the supercar
boat is in its austerity; it does not even have an option for air
conditioning. Its real identity is as a street legal race car.
The body rests atop a tubular chromoly steel chassis, on which are
mounted a number of performance parts, including a front/mid-mounted 4.7
liter GM LS7 V8 engine, which may be coupled to the rear axle through a
Mercedes seven-speed paddleshift transmission.To add some of the sophistication expected in vehicles of this haughty clique, the L148 will come equipped with air conditioning, satellite radio, GPS navigation – and even a windscreen and a roof. The L148 is currently planned to reach the road in mid-2014.
Richards starting building these cars in 2005, having never built an entire car before. Heck, who has ever built an entire car?
“It’s one thing to make parts,” said Richard, standing amidst various Lucras in his San Marcos, Calif. shop. “Like, if you need something for that Mustang (parked in a corner), a hood or a bumper, you just buy it, paint it, clean it, whatever. But when you don’t have even an idea of what the shape should be, you’ve got to design the shape, make it, figure out the tooling to make it, figure out a way of making more of them the exact same way. Then you put it on and figure that it doesn’t match something else and you have to do it again.”
The abovementioned trial and error method of carmaking he did for a little while as he learned the intricacies of the craft. Computers, computer aided design or CAD in particular, made it easier and made the cars better. Now that he is 40 or 50 cars into being a car manufacturer, he has things more or less sorted out. You start with an engine, hang it in space on your computer, then work out the rest: wheels go here, transmission there, seats about there, glove compartment under that, etc. so that everything fits around everything else and you can still keep a tight rein on the looks and potential performance. While there are dozens of LC470s around the globe, Richards is working on a new car, the L148, which will be better in every way, he is sure. But both will have come about first on a computer.
“Every piece of tubing in this car is done on the computer,” Richards said. It’s so much easier getting it right on the CAD before you ever have anything in 3D in front of you. “The tubes are all laser-cut so they just lay in the jig. There’s only one place for everything to go. There’s no way for anything to be wrong. Literally in a couple hours you could lay the tubing in here and have it be ready to weld.”
Indeed, there was a frame in the jig as we spoke. A frame designed on a computer. But the design didn’t start with the frame.
“A lot of guys build a car then they figure out things like door latches and door hinges and strikers and all that kind of stuff. They do it later because they think, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll design the door the way I want it and build the car, build the chasis and now, aw (shoot), I gotta make the door open. And, aw (shoot) now I gotta make hood props. And that’s why you see the guy with the broom handle holding his hood up because he just, it’s really hard to go back and do that later. So what I learned is, you start with the little stuff first. It’s a lot easier to design a door around an existing door hinge that you like.”
- See more at: http://autoweek.com/article/car-reviews/lucra-lc470-driving-impression#sthash.YtJNvwt6.dpuf
“It’s one thing to make parts,” said Richard, standing amidst various Lucras in his San Marcos, Calif. shop. “Like, if you need something for that Mustang (parked in a corner), a hood or a bumper, you just buy it, paint it, clean it, whatever. But when you don’t have even an idea of what the shape should be, you’ve got to design the shape, make it, figure out the tooling to make it, figure out a way of making more of them the exact same way. Then you put it on and figure that it doesn’t match something else and you have to do it again.”
The abovementioned trial and error method of carmaking he did for a little while as he learned the intricacies of the craft. Computers, computer aided design or CAD in particular, made it easier and made the cars better. Now that he is 40 or 50 cars into being a car manufacturer, he has things more or less sorted out. You start with an engine, hang it in space on your computer, then work out the rest: wheels go here, transmission there, seats about there, glove compartment under that, etc. so that everything fits around everything else and you can still keep a tight rein on the looks and potential performance. While there are dozens of LC470s around the globe, Richards is working on a new car, the L148, which will be better in every way, he is sure. But both will have come about first on a computer.
“Every piece of tubing in this car is done on the computer,” Richards said. It’s so much easier getting it right on the CAD before you ever have anything in 3D in front of you. “The tubes are all laser-cut so they just lay in the jig. There’s only one place for everything to go. There’s no way for anything to be wrong. Literally in a couple hours you could lay the tubing in here and have it be ready to weld.”
Indeed, there was a frame in the jig as we spoke. A frame designed on a computer. But the design didn’t start with the frame.
“A lot of guys build a car then they figure out things like door latches and door hinges and strikers and all that kind of stuff. They do it later because they think, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll design the door the way I want it and build the car, build the chasis and now, aw (shoot), I gotta make the door open. And, aw (shoot) now I gotta make hood props. And that’s why you see the guy with the broom handle holding his hood up because he just, it’s really hard to go back and do that later. So what I learned is, you start with the little stuff first. It’s a lot easier to design a door around an existing door hinge that you like.”
- See more at: http://autoweek.com/article/car-reviews/lucra-lc470-driving-impression#sthash.YtJNvwt6.dpuf
The LC470 is
handmade in San Marcos, California by skilled craftsmen whose only goal
in life is to scare the living hell out of you. Bwahahaha! For the most
part, they succeeded.
There is nothing else in the world quite like a Lucra. Maybe it’ll remind you of a Shelby Cobra 427, or an angry, angry Lister. There’s a car company in Lebanon, New Hampshire called Dragon Motors that makes a similar-looking product but we haven’t driven that.
This car is the product of a guy named Luke Richards, who grew up alternately in England and the United States. In England there are lightweight cars like Lotus. In the U.S. there are muscle cars. The idea here is to combine the best of both those disparate worlds.
For a while Richards was an exotic car dealer. Then he discovered the Beck Spyder on a trip to Brazil, where those cars were made. From that he met Chuck Beck who, at the time, was making the Beck Lister. Richards thought the Beck Lister was really something but wasn’t refined enough for contemporary exotic car buyers. So he started his own company to make this, a refined scream on four wheels.
“We made a car that weighs the same as the Lotus but has the power of a big V8 muscle car,” Richards said.
That would be a 2000-pound tube-frame car with a carbon-fiber body powered by a Chevy 505-hp Chevy LS7 engine. It’s like having your own Saturn V but with nicer fenders.
- See more at: http://autoweek.com/article/car-reviews/lucra-lc470-driving-impression#sthash.YtJNvwt6.dpuf
There is nothing else in the world quite like a Lucra. Maybe it’ll remind you of a Shelby Cobra 427, or an angry, angry Lister. There’s a car company in Lebanon, New Hampshire called Dragon Motors that makes a similar-looking product but we haven’t driven that.
This car is the product of a guy named Luke Richards, who grew up alternately in England and the United States. In England there are lightweight cars like Lotus. In the U.S. there are muscle cars. The idea here is to combine the best of both those disparate worlds.
For a while Richards was an exotic car dealer. Then he discovered the Beck Spyder on a trip to Brazil, where those cars were made. From that he met Chuck Beck who, at the time, was making the Beck Lister. Richards thought the Beck Lister was really something but wasn’t refined enough for contemporary exotic car buyers. So he started his own company to make this, a refined scream on four wheels.
“We made a car that weighs the same as the Lotus but has the power of a big V8 muscle car,” Richards said.
That would be a 2000-pound tube-frame car with a carbon-fiber body powered by a Chevy 505-hp Chevy LS7 engine. It’s like having your own Saturn V but with nicer fenders.
- See more at: http://autoweek.com/article/car-reviews/lucra-lc470-driving-impression#sthash.YtJNvwt6.dpuf
Richards starting building these cars in 2005, having never built an entire car before. Heck, who has ever built an entire car?
“It’s one thing to make parts,” said Richard, standing amidst various Lucras in his San Marcos, Calif. shop. “Like, if you need something for that Mustang (parked in a corner), a hood or a bumper, you just buy it, paint it, clean it, whatever. But when you don’t have even an idea of what the shape should be, you’ve got to design the shape, make it, figure out the tooling to make it, figure out a way of making more of them the exact same way. Then you put it on and figure that it doesn’t match something else and you have to do it again.”
The abovementioned trial and error method of carmaking he did for a little while as he learned the intricacies of the craft. Computers, computer aided design or CAD in particular, made it easier and made the cars better. Now that he is 40 or 50 cars into being a car manufacturer, he has things more or less sorted out. You start with an engine, hang it in space on your computer, then work out the rest: wheels go here, transmission there, seats about there, glove compartment under that, etc. so that everything fits around everything else and you can still keep a tight rein on the looks and potential performance. While there are dozens of LC470s around the globe, Richards is working on a new car, the L148, which will be better in every way, he is sure. But both will have come about first on a computer.
“Every piece of tubing in this car is done on the computer,” Richards said. It’s so much easier getting it right on the CAD before you ever have anything in 3D in front of you. “The tubes are all laser-cut so they just lay in the jig. There’s only one place for everything to go. There’s no way for anything to be wrong. Literally in a couple hours you could lay the tubing in here and have it be ready to weld.”
Indeed, there was a frame in the jig as we spoke. A frame designed on a computer. But the design didn’t start with the frame.
“A lot of guys build a car then they figure out things like door latches and door hinges and strikers and all that kind of stuff. They do it later because they think, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll design the door the way I want it and build the car, build the chasis and now, aw (shoot), I gotta make the door open. And, aw (shoot) now I gotta make hood props. And that’s why you see the guy with the broom handle holding his hood up because he just, it’s really hard to go back and do that later. So what I learned is, you start with the little stuff first. It’s a lot easier to design a door around an existing door hinge that you like.”
- See more at: http://autoweek.com/article/car-reviews/lucra-lc470-driving-impression#sthash.YtJNvwt6.dpuf
“It’s one thing to make parts,” said Richard, standing amidst various Lucras in his San Marcos, Calif. shop. “Like, if you need something for that Mustang (parked in a corner), a hood or a bumper, you just buy it, paint it, clean it, whatever. But when you don’t have even an idea of what the shape should be, you’ve got to design the shape, make it, figure out the tooling to make it, figure out a way of making more of them the exact same way. Then you put it on and figure that it doesn’t match something else and you have to do it again.”
The abovementioned trial and error method of carmaking he did for a little while as he learned the intricacies of the craft. Computers, computer aided design or CAD in particular, made it easier and made the cars better. Now that he is 40 or 50 cars into being a car manufacturer, he has things more or less sorted out. You start with an engine, hang it in space on your computer, then work out the rest: wheels go here, transmission there, seats about there, glove compartment under that, etc. so that everything fits around everything else and you can still keep a tight rein on the looks and potential performance. While there are dozens of LC470s around the globe, Richards is working on a new car, the L148, which will be better in every way, he is sure. But both will have come about first on a computer.
“Every piece of tubing in this car is done on the computer,” Richards said. It’s so much easier getting it right on the CAD before you ever have anything in 3D in front of you. “The tubes are all laser-cut so they just lay in the jig. There’s only one place for everything to go. There’s no way for anything to be wrong. Literally in a couple hours you could lay the tubing in here and have it be ready to weld.”
Indeed, there was a frame in the jig as we spoke. A frame designed on a computer. But the design didn’t start with the frame.
“A lot of guys build a car then they figure out things like door latches and door hinges and strikers and all that kind of stuff. They do it later because they think, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll design the door the way I want it and build the car, build the chasis and now, aw (shoot), I gotta make the door open. And, aw (shoot) now I gotta make hood props. And that’s why you see the guy with the broom handle holding his hood up because he just, it’s really hard to go back and do that later. So what I learned is, you start with the little stuff first. It’s a lot easier to design a door around an existing door hinge that you like.”
- See more at: http://autoweek.com/article/car-reviews/lucra-lc470-driving-impression#sthash.YtJNvwt6.dpuf
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