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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00:11This incredible, hand built, supercar, can go from 0-60 in under 3 seconds
00:16and can reach speeds of over 200 mph
00:19But it will cost you between 96 and 128k dollars to buy one
00:24Rivers excited
00:26It's easy to drive, it's gives you a lot of confidence
00:29inspires some really daring manoeuvres and craps, but it's just fun. Everyone who gets
00:35out of it 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. 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
01:03with the manoeuvrability 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.
01:23Growing up in England and growing up in America, I kind of felt like I had a passion for V8s,
01:27but 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 fiber, 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
01:46stout. We didn't skimp out on any of the safety or rigidity, because that's equally important.
01:51We 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. It has a little bit of oversteer. It likes
02:02to drive through corners. It's really easy to drive, really friendly, really difficult
02:06to spin. I mean, really difficult to get out of control, and we've tried completely, and
02:13it makes for a very high-performance car that's really easy to drive by a novice or a professional.
02:19Each Luca is built to order, and from start to finish, the build process takes around
02:23eight weeks.
02:25We 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's all in one piece, so it's very, very
02:38strong all by itself. After we're done with the assembly, it goes out for alignment. We
02:42like to custom and do all the testing, because we feel like this way they feel more attached
02:47to the car. We take them and the car to a track, and we just carefully warm it up, carefully
02:53lap it slowly, and keep checking it, and lap it faster and faster and faster with a race
02:58driver to help to train the customer how to drive it properly, and by the end of the day,
03:02the car is fully seated and broken in. The driver is fully trained, and after that, we
03:06put the car in paint and then interior. At that point, the car is back here. We have
03:11one final check over again, make sure everything is how we want it. We reassemble it, and we
03:16ship it to the customer. But aside from its incredible performance, the most rewarding
03:22part about designing the car is the reaction it gets from others. It's done a lot of things
03:27that I wouldn't do in a regular car. It's won races, it's jumped bridges in Mexico,
03:33it's been in movies, it's been off-road. The main thing what it does, that most every other
03:38car I've been around doesn't do, is it stops traffic everywhere it goes. Everyone wants
03:43to talk about it. If you go to the gas station, it'll take an hour. It's just everywhere
03:48you get, it gets near, you want to talk about the car. Everywhere you go, it makes people
03:51smile. Nobody's intimidated by it, nobody's threatened by it. They're just happy to see
03:56it, and they want to talk about it.