<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  The Specs While at Harvard, ex-Marine Jay Rogers formulated a business plan to harness the creativity of the world&amp;#039;s underemployed car designers. The idea won the school&amp;#039;s annual business-plan contest and soon after, Rogers formed Local Motors to put it to the test.  The company held contests wherein designers submitted sketches that were voted on by the online community. Instead of one designer giving a few options, the worldwide mob provided over 10,000 cars, and the coolest ones rose. That&amp;#039;s how a student at the Art Center College of Design, Sangho Kim, turned the fever dream of an off-road P-51 Mustang fighter plane into a rolling reality called the Rally Fighter.  The car employs a steel-tube frame, composite bodywork and two available engines\u2014a BMW twin-turbo diesel from a Chevy LS3 small-block V8. The V8 is not as novel as the BMW oil-burner, but has the advantage of 50-state emissions compliance. And 430 hp, to the BMW&amp;#039;s 265. Rogers says the diesel could still be available for someone who wants it, but right now the momentum is with the V8 powertrain. The Drive In the scrub outside Phoenix, the Rally Fighter loafs along on the LS3&amp;#039;s bounty of torque. But when I get a stretch of open wash, a heavier foot summons a downshift, rocketing the Rally Fighter forward. I quickly learn to modulate my throttle foot, because power oversteer is never far away when you&amp;#039;re trying to put down 430 hp on dirt.  I&amp;#039;m using off-road techniques\u2014trying to place rocks under the tires instead of the differential, choosing lines that offer the least potential for utter sidewall annihilation\u2014but I&amp;#039;m doing them at highway speeds. As a result, I&amp;#039;m lost in the sort of super-focused driving fugue that I only tend to experience at, say, a racetrack. Every neuron in my brain is devoted to processing this experience. I&amp;#039;m probably drooling. And the Rally Fighter is working exactly as it&amp;#039;s supposed to, its daddy-longlegs suspension soaking up the hits without bouncing us into (for example) an enormous bull who suddenly appears next to the trail. That unexpected bovine aside, the Rally Fighter runs the gnarly 40-mile trail in 3 hours. The time for usual 4x4s? Eight hours. And the Rally Fighter drives only the rear wheels.  The Bottom Line The Rally Fighter won&amp;#039;t be for everyone. And not just because of its design and the process that led to it\u2014obviously, there aren&amp;#039;t many other crowd-sourced, warplane-inspired desert racers on the road\u2014but for the niche it occupies in the automotive firmament. The Rally Fighter is, in its way, sort of like an off-road, American version of a Lotus\u2014a car that&amp;#039;s rare but attainable for mortals, built by a small, focused company of gearheads.      For more on the Rally Fighter, pick up the April 2011 issue of Popular Mechanics.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a6241/local-motors-rally-fighter-off-road-test-drive/?click=pm_latest>