Checking in on Jay Leno’s website the other day I came across the Rocket from the Light Car Company, which is very, very cool. The car was produced, starting in 1992 by the partnership of race driver Chris Craft and Gordon Murray who designed another nifty car you may have heard of, the McLaren F1. The idea was to build an extreme road car with excellent handling. This was no kit car, it was carefully hand built and there were only about 48 made.
Jay has a pretty good video describing the car which is powered by a 1000cc 5 valve Yamaha Genesis engine and runs the stock Yamaha gearbox which then drives another gearbox, by the same designer who created the one used in the McLaren, giving the car 6 speeds in low range, 6 speeds in high range and 6 speeds in reverse. In fact, Jay mentions a friend of his who set a speed record in one of these going 149 mph backwards! It weighs just shy of 800 pounds due to carbon fiber and other lightweight materials, has 147 horsepower and tops out about 150 mph. It has two seats in tandem, the rear seat can be covered by a body panel when not used. Headlights are on a very neat articulated arm assembly that pops up when needed.
The video shows Leno on the street and out on the freeway and it sounds absolutely great, just what you would expect a liter bike to sound like, except of course, this is a car.
The car has been out of production for 15 years but Chris Craft’s son Luke, has cleaned up the design with plans to restart production using a 220 horsepower supercharged engine. Considering the power to weight ratio, you’re looking at a pretty impressive machine with a very high grin factor. No one mentions price, but Jay Leno will probably own one of the new ones, too, so figure it out. I could make a spot for one of these, … I wish.
Link: Jay Leno’s Garage
Link: Light Car Company
Alejandro says
Back in the day they went for 40k pounds, so that is about $80k. With inflation over the years, it would cost well over 100k today. I think only about 55 or so were made. The problem was that even at that price, the company didn’t make any money on it and went out of business! People never realize how expensive it is to make extremely limited production cars. I also think that Murray’s other car, the McLaren F1 was also not profitable.
koen verhagen says
Great to see some interest for the Rocket here. Actually only 38 were build in the first production run of which one chassis, R008, was destroyed. Two of them are known to be in the US, many went to Japan and R029 is the only one at the European Mainland. The rest is still in the UK.
Jay’s car is R049 and it was the last production car build in Stanford in the Vale. Well actually Chris Holley of the Light Car Company went to the US together with four crates of stuff and built the car in Jay’s Big Dog Garage. The Chassis R039-R048 were reserved for the illborn Euroseries racechallenge. The new series Chassis nrs continue, but with a small addition. R039/R001 is the first of the New Rockets.
Small remark. http://www.lccrocket.com is not the website of the Light Car Company, but an enthusiasts site. The official Rocket site can be found at http://www.rocket-car.co.uk.
kneeslider says
Thanks for the update, Koen. Fixed the link, too.
todd says
neat. I don’t think it needs 220HP in the new version but I guess it’s specs that really sell a vehicle, not its performance. The 147HP was probably already at the verge of being uncontrollable. Heck, I’d love to have one even with “only” 60hp!
-todd
Bryce says
That looks ridiculously fun. 800lb and 220hp sounds like a recipe for tail wagging.
koen verhagen says
Welcome, kneeslider. Thanks for fixing the link, although I didnt mind you put the link to our enthusiasts site there 🙂
Dodgy says
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN1uDon4TWM
chris says
holy. crap. why don’t more companies think like this? maybe if one of the big guys thought this way (no offense koen) the average guy could afford one. alas. show them the way please.
koen verhagen says
@chris: I’m just an owner, who had the opportunity to buy one of the very few second hand ones that change hands. So I’m not involved with the company, just very enthusiastic about the whole concept ever since it was first launched. So not offended in any way.
The thing is that the initial idea behind the Rocket was to build just two of them. Chris Craft and Gordon Murray had been friends since the early seventies and one night they cooked up the plan for the ultimate driver car. And they would just make two. But friends who saw the plans wanted one as well so before they knew it they were a car manufacturer.
I agree that more manufacturers should think this way. Why have a big trunk, seat five adults, while the car is used most of the time by just one person. You could rent a van if you wanted to go on a daytrip with the family, right?
Gordon once said that if they would use off the shelf components (which would make the whole thing a lot cheaper) the car would weigh in at a massive 30Kg more. So that was a no go. Imagine it would still weigh only 400 kgs!.
And maybe that is the whole magic behind the whole concept. The car is, together with the McLaren F1, the most non-compromised vehicle in the world. Developped by two of the most dedicated man in the business, and now further engineered by Luke Craft, who is in the same league of perfectionists. And that’s the thing. If they would have to compromise, they would never even started building it.
chris says
sorry, i misunderstood your role with the car. beyond the manufacturers not thinking this way why don’t more consumers think this way? is it just because it’s all we’ve been offered and are used to it, or do most people really want a bunch of car they’re not going to use?
Sean says
Strip away the electric windows. Strip away the all leather cow interior. Strip away the cup holders, the radio and the air conditioning. Make a car that acts like the finest audio equipment. As straight a line as possible from the source of the enjoyment, to you. Make a car that makes you a part of the car, that takes away the robot and replaces it with the animal. This is what I feel from this car.
Alejandro says
Out of curiosity, does anyone know how much Jay paid for his Rocket? I am just nosey and curious. I hear he gets huge discounts, or many of his cars for free. It is interesting that you work hard to become rich, and then when you do, you get stuff for free.
hoyt says
It’s interesting that many people refer to this car as the closest thing to a Formula One car for the street, when it is powered by a motorcycle engine.
That says a lot about motorcycle engine performance in general and the handling built-into this car
coho says
Did anyone else wonder how the cameraman (who was apparently the only one who knew the way) was attached to the car during the video?
todd says
I think he was sitting in the rear seat.
The video makes me really want to build something like this.
-todd
coho says
Yeah, I didn’t see the bit where it has a back seat until after I posted that. My bad.
I did enjoy envisioning the swiss saddle and the bungee cords, the feet flapping in the slipstream…
C. Deforrest says
Shucks, just seems like a very polished Locost with an R1 engine & a reversing box. Hot stuff for 1992, but one could duplicate something like this quite easily these days, what with the renewed popularity in Lotus Seven-like cars.