The tiny rocket from Fast & Furious 6 – the Lucra LC470
Is there a perfect formula for making a sports car? Well, according to Luke Richards, the founder of Lucra, the formula reads something like this. It should weigh just 900kgs, have a humungous V8 borrowed from a Corvette sitting between the driver and the front axle and a single piece lightweight carbon fibre body. If you're thinking that this is a 'funny car' we're talking about here then you'd be mistaken. The car in question is the Lucra LC470. It plays a small role in the new Fast and Furious 6 that is releasing this weekend so let's find out a little bit more about this cool set of wheels.
The Lucra LC470 manages to look like a number of American muscle cars - AC Cobra, Dodge Viper immediately come to mind. It's small too and it's hard to believe that there's a V8 sitting under that hood. The car is not a monocoque that we're used to seeing on most production sports cars and is really a carbon fibre body that's bonded to a light tubular steel chassis. Independent, fully adjustable suspension that's borrowed from the Corvette C4 sits on all four corners and it's available with either a 5.7-litre or 7-litre LS series engine from GM. Power is transmitted to the wheels via a close ratio 5-speed transmission with a short throw shifter. According to Richards, either engine is super fast but the 7-litre engine plasters a bigger smile on your face.
The car is actually tail heavy with 55 per cent of its weight sitting over the rear wheels and should be a lot of fun if you're the sort who like a little bit of opposite lock. The engine is also positioned slightly to the passenger's side to compensate for the fact that the car will be raced by only the driver. Lucra claim a 0-100kmph time of 2.5 seconds while the quarter mile is covered in 9.4 seconds. Top speed is likely to be in the range of 290kmph but they haven't had a chance to test this.
There are a lot of advantages of buying into a small sports car manufacture like Lucra. One tends to get a lot of personal attention and the car can be tailor made to suit the owner with pedals, gearshift position and seating all customizable. And while the seats can be made as comfortable as you like you may miss creature comforts like CD player or air con which are not on the options list. Prices for the Lucra 470 start at Rs 46 lakh for the base model and go on up to Rs 64 lakh for the top of the line Lucra 470 SC. In the movie the role of Lucra owner goes to Tej Parker played by Ludacris.