Funny - I read an article about Local Motors about 3 weeks ago, an Open Source manufacturer opening "micro factories" (goes well with micro brew), across the US. They make community designed vehicles to spec that meet DOT and other regulations for legal highway or offroad driving. For instance their Rally Fighter is SCORE legal to race in the Baja 1000, and 50 state emission legal. They currently have 5 major models in design.You can purchase a Rally Fighter for under $60k, and you are then invited to not only customize it to your liking, but also actually come and build it with your own "personal mechanic trainer" to get you into shape if your wrenches are rusty.
The Rally Fighter is available with a BMW 3.0 liter turbo "clean diesel" cranking out 425 ft/lb of torque (capable of 30-35mpg), or a 6.2 liter 430 hp gas V8. It seems to come in 2 basic flavors, a kind of sports car model that is off road ready but really performs well on the highway, and a slightly higher slung model to really catch some air and blow mud.The Rally Fighter styling was designed by community member Sangho Kim, a 2010 graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and overall design and engineering was completed by over 160 community members - pretty impressive example of "power of the people". This vehicle may sound expensive, but you have to imagine- it uses cutting edge technology, and is nearly bullet proof, if it was made by a leading auto maker it would probably cost in excess of $100k. And while its not a trophy truck, it could probably keep good pace with a trophy truck which will often cost $200-400k.
To make an example of its capabilities - LM pinned the Rally Fighter against a Ford F-150 Raptor which is intended to be a factory "race ready" (not really) off road truck with a 6.2 liter 411 horsepower V8, long travel Fox Racing off road shocks and 4x4. The 2 vehicles took the dirt path from Pheonix to Flagstaff, it took the Ford 8 hours to arrive at the top of the mountain, while the Rally Fighter had been resting at the bar in Flagstaff for nearly 5 hours waiting for the Ford to arrive - obviously the Ford is not as well equipped, but who would have thought it would take more than double the time to complete the same course.
Local Motors is really innovating design, using things like carbon fiber, full roll cages, and no paint - they found out vinyl is stronger/lighter than paint- saved 12 lb on the car's weight, and its easier to customize and repair. Designs are freely downloadable on their site, so anyone can easily contribute and improve upon it.
Here is a great video showing how the car can seemingly float across nasty terrain over which I would normally drive my truck at no more than 10 mph:
If you are ever in Pheonix - LM has a monthly "show-off" bar-b-q event every 2nd Tuesday of the month - more on the car here. More on Open Source auto here.
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