Rally Fighter

The Rally Fighter is an American automobile manufactured by Local Motors and introduced in 2009. It is the first car to be developed using co-creation design. The exterior design was submitted by Sangho Kim and selected through community votes. The Rally Fighter is street legal in all 50 US states.

Specifications


The Rally Fighter is powered by a front-mid mounted 6.2 L GM LS3 V8 that produces 430 hp at 5,900 rpm and 424 lbft of torque at 4,600 rpm. Power goes to the rear wheels through a 4-speed GM 4L85-E automatic transmission. The suspension utilizes “Double A-Arms” in the front end and a Solid Ford 9-inch axle using either a “Watts-Link” to locate the axle laterally and a “3-Link” with Trailing arms to locate the axle vertically in the rear or utilized a “Triangulated 4-Link” rear control arm setup to locate the axle in every direction. both using coil springs and “Coil-over” Long travel telescopic shock absorbers. This gives it 16 inches of suspension travel in the front and 20 inches in the rear. It also features a fiberglass body to save weight. In the interior, the Rally Fighter is equipped with standard 4-point harness seat belts, a full roll cage and Recaro seats, as well as amenities such as air conditioning, stereo and power windows.

Build process
The Rally Fighter used an assembly process where the buyer of the car went to one of Local Motors' micro-factories to assemble their car with help from a team of Local Motors employees. This also allowed the Rally Fighter to be titled as a kit car or component car in the United States. The Rally Fighter is street legal in all 50 states and upwards of 50 cars have been produced.

Crowd sourcing
The Rally Fighter is an open-source vehicle. The Rally Fighter is believed to be the first production vehicle designed through crowdsourcing, the process of drawing input from a global community of interested people via the Internet. The winning design was submitted by Sangho Kim of Pasadena, California, and is inspired by a P-51 Mustang fighter plane. It was chosen through a vote in 2009 by a community of people on the Internet. Using this method, the car was developed from start to finish in 18 months.