The Local Motors Rally Fighter Is a Ridiculous Off-Road Sports Car

CHECK OUT THIS RALLY FIGHTER ON CARS & BIDS!

Rally Fighter review! Today I'm reviewing the Local Motors Rally Fighter, which is a truly ridiculous off-road sports car. This is a special and bizarre vehicle, and I'm going to show you all the quirks and features of this Rally Fighter. I'm also going to drive the Rally Fighter and review the driving experience from behind the wheel.

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[startupslick]

I am the owner of the first Rally Fighter made, the Beta, pre-production car with the BMW M57 turbo diesel. I was the 11th hired person at Local Motors and was part of every production Rally Fighter ever made; I designed many parts for the cars. When I was an intern and later mechanical engineer I always obsessed with the turbo diesel Beta car. I kept the car running, insured and registered when I was employed there and the CEO later sold the car to me years after my departure.

[JS-]

That red interior light is meant to use when driving on dark.

You can use it also when driving because it doesn't disturb, reflect or blind you on dark.

Lots of semi-trucks have also red, green or blue interior "night-lights"

[braunarsch]

local motors not only was a company that made cool cars, but it was a great community full of amazing engineers and designers. i was one of the earliest members of the community and all of us contributed to the development of the rally fighter and several other projects that ran while the company was running. it was and still is one of the best closely knit communities of designers and engineers you will see with a common passion and a great team spirit! so happy that the Rally Fighter is featured here! 😀

[michaelfiber]

It's honestly amazing how this is put together. They made so many great, common sense decisions when designing what appears to be an insane car.

[rd.]

You can't tell me that's not a Coil Brawler.

[GiovaniUrrutia]

As a former employee myself, seeing Doug’s joy is bittersweet. We all knew we had something special, but we just couldn’t get the business model going.

[DwightBynumJr]

Boy does THIS take me back! I was actually fortunate enough to win one of the skin design contests and got to see it "in the flesh" at SEMA back in 2010! It was Rally Fighter #0008 if I'm not mistaken. I was sad to see the company went away this past January, but seeing these beasts and experiencing SEMA for the first time will absolutely stick with me forever!

[medwriter]

It is so fun to see the pure joy on Doug's face as he opens it up. A true look of someone achieving a bucket list item.

[AZShortBusJames]

I worked for Local Motors and built quite a few. They would let us borrow the sales demo unit. Driving around town felt like a rockstar. People driving alongside amd trying to get pictures. Always had to allow extra time whenever you stop somewhere as people had a bunch of questions.

[hellatightdude]

The perfect car to drive across the post apocalyptic landscape from fuel station to fuel station after mutually assured destruction brings down society as we know it, thanks Doug!

[JPisalive]

I love it when Doug gets even more excited than usual about a car. You can hear it in his voice. Always great to watch.

[dcvisuals]

Rally Fighter was an incredible experiment into what crowd-source engineering could produce. I was lucky enough to ride in one a few times as a friend of mine was an engineer for them, incredible feeling getting onto the 202 South onramp flooring it all the way. Local Motors was always a place that local car and engineering enthusiasts were welcome. During their open houses you could tour RF's being built and even get under the fiberglass shell and pick it up to get a sense for the weight. Awesome Arizona business trailblazing the way!

[Frytech]

At 13:13, the red light is most likely to preserve night vision. If you’re driving at night and your eyes adjust to the darkness red light helps you keep that “night vision”.
It’s basically a standard in marine industry, most yachts, ships, etc have red lights in the wheelhouse.
Perhaps, they thought if this car would be participating in some sort of “The Dakar Rally” type of race, and alongside the drive would be sitting his navigator, it would be helpful for him to look at the notes or a map in a red light and not lose his night vision.

You can actually check out the difference for yourself (instruction for Apple devices): go to Settings - Accessibility - Display - Color Filters. Enable red filter, and check out in the night just how much better your eyes will adjust between looking at the screen of the phone and then looking into the darkness, and how less stressful it would feel to look at that screen.

[Thewizkdojdj]

13:14, the red interior light is to keep your night vision at night instead of white light, its used in police cars often

[Telogor]

13:16 The red light is for use at night. Due to how the rods (night vision receptors) in your eyes work, your night vision is much less affected by red light than shorter wavelengths. So, you can use the red light in the cabin while retaining most of your night vision.
I actually made something similar to this in Forza Horizon 4. I put a rally suspension on a Camaro and lifted it as far as I could. It was a pretty cool rally car.

[nickgarcia]

I worked at a garage in Lewisville TX a few years ago and our lead mechanic drove one of these for awhile. That car is truly insane and very cool!

[ryandick]

Local Motors in South Phoenix, AZ used to have open houses once a month or so where they would show off their most recent bikes, the shop, the new cars, their overland campers, the electric Big Wheel Drifters, etc. etc. At one of them they had built a track full of jumps for the Rally Fighter, and the driver took my eight-year-old daughter out onto it, going around twice. You could hear her shrieks of delight as they hit the apex of each jump, 10 to 15 feet in the air, over the sound of the engine. Great memories, and I am sad that they went out of business.

[asimo]

Rivian should make something like this for their "Sports car". I always loved the Rally Fighter and I think this type of design would make a bunch of sense for Rivian.

[RogueCorps]

The joy in your voice driving the Rally Fighter....! That's how I imagine getting behind that wheel! Always loved it.

[JordanCS]

Super fun video. So glad you pointed out the door handles. My first car was a 1992 Honda Civic, and I recognized the door handles immediately.