Is it Japanese? Is it European? Is it American? Suffice to say that it is as every bit of Japanese as it is European and American; it's all of them. The Vemac RD-series has always been a project that went into the right hands, with extremely lucky connections consisting of wealthy CEOs, ambitious race car designers, and innovative engineers, all possible through the power of old friendship. The story of this wonderful pseudo-Elise targa came about in 1994, when to-be father of Vemac cars, Osamu Hatagawa, test drives a small open-top race car named after one of Britain's favored clubman circuits, Cadwell Park. Extremely fascinated by the chuckable handling of the one-off racing car, he begged for the small company to release a legalized "Cadwell" for the masses, unfortunately, his hopes and prayers were not answered. Nonetheless, a determined Hatagawa walked out with one dream; a dream to create the purest driving machine mankind can ever wish for, as how he experienced such delectable paradise driving the small open-top racer.
Hatagawa-san wasn't alone in his pursuit of perfection. Invited in the project was Tokyo R&D CEO Masao Ono, who was also responsible for many Le Mans and open-wheel racecar designs in the mid 1970s, with his most successful affiliation being with the racing company DOME. At the time, an old friend of Ono-san would continue to create one of the first breakthrough cars of famed supercar designer Gordon Murray; the light craft sports Rocket; conceived by Murray, brought to life by Chris Craft of Light Car Company. Delighted by his work and seeing the potential of Chris' expertise being put down into the project, Ono contacted Chris to discuss about the ambitious "dream" that both he and Hatagawa-san had came about. Chris happily took up the offer, and immediately puts Light Car Company designer Steve Everitt to the task of coming up with a design plan, upon further consultation with Ono-san.
With the project now taking shape, Ono-san needed a place for the car to get recognized, somewhere big, somewhere filled with opportunities, and eventually, only one country came into mind; The United States of America. Searching far and wide for corporate deals, Ono eventually landed himself into the hands of another one of his past colleagues; Vern Fotheringham. Ex-manager of a race team which Ono supposedly work with back in the 70s, and now successful entrepreneur in the world of satellite communications and broadband wireless. It took Ono quite some time to negotiate deals with Fotheringham, as he has been out of the racing picture for quite sometime, but nevertheless, Fotheringham agreed to promote the up and coming speedster by having a joint venture between his mobile enterprise and Ono's Tokyo R&D design company. Hence, the dream of creating the best speedster is at full force now, no turning back, no regrets, just progress.
After years of hard work, designing, and brainstorming, Vemac, which stood for VErn, MAsao, and Chris, unveiled their first fully functioning RD180 sports car at the turn of the millennium. Compared to the fast exoticas with dozen-cylinder engines and sickening levels of horsepower, usually of the Italian kind, the RD180, as per its original concept, was a car that oozed British open top motoring. Quick, nimble, and high-revving was the catch, paying tribute to the ole' country classics of the 60s. A smooth flowing design which bears a striking resemblance to Lotus' proud Elise line-up, bearing a spitting image from its design shape right down to the small sweeping rear window pillars and four round taillights ala Series 1 Elises. Such similar, perhaps a bit copy and paste, design wasn't the only thing that Vemac supposedly took inspiration from. Suspension design also followed the Series I's double wishbone mechanism, offering excellent driving controllability and performance as demonstrated by many double-wishbone equipped sports cars of that time, example being Toyota's A80-generation Supra.
Apart from the similar suspension design and criminally identical bodywork, the similarities only stopped there. The interior was as spartan as it could have gotten. No fancy buttons amounting to that of Star Wars battleship command centers. Seats are fancy beige leather, (optional black or full carbon clad is available), full buckets. Steering wheel looks very 90s sports car. A whole carbon fiber plate decorated the face of the dash, with a small rectangular cut-out that made way for the in-car entertainment system. Air conditioning is present, even if it does look like it has been put back hurriedly after an assembly mishap. The gear shift placed to the right of the steering wheel, which is also right hand drive, screaming race car by every ounce of the word. This is not the interior which you will find pleasant luxuries. This is not the interior which you will enjoy a sip of your 32-year old wine in. This is an interior made to perform, an interior which provides only the basic necessities. Spartan, honest, no fuss. If you're expecting something equal to that of a Benz S600, you're sorely mistaken; the RD-series has none of that in store.
The chassis is a full space frame design made out of lightweight aluminum tubes, which have been strengthened to produce higher rigidity and impact safety measures, such a similar design you will also find in the true-blooded ZZ spyders of Tommykaira fame. Hence, the lightweight chassis design helped the small spyder to achieve an incredible weight of only 890 kilograms. A few kilograms off the Series II Elises. However, compared to the Rover and Toyota engines Lotus used for their flagship open-top targa, Vemac opted for a more hardcore option. VTEC fans will be delighted to know that the original RD180 speedster utilized Honda's iconic B18C engine, taken from their sports Integra SiR model, producing 180PS and mated to a 5-speed manual. What was interesting about the earlier RD180 models was the mere fact that the lads up at Vemac managed to position the B-series engine longitudinally, ala many mid-engined Ferraris of the time. The reason for such an unorthodox route was to further optimize the car's weight balance front to rear. With the genius mind of Ono and Chris, they were able to retrofit the existing DC2 transmission longitudinally , all with the help of a custom housing and a few other adjustments. A few years later, when the RD200 was introduced, an even more powerful K20A sourced from the Civic Type R was chucked in, now making 220PS but having the engine transversely mounted instead.
Such a car would be a definite waste had it not been tested into the rigors of motorsport duty, remembering that the original plan and concept was to make a road legal interpretation of an open-top racing car. Hence, enter the RD320R, a modified racing-only Vemac powered by a 3.2 L C32B V6 sourced from a late model Honda NSX and shod with an aggressive wide bodykit seemingly conceived from a Ridge Racer fanboy's wet dream. The racing model proved quite successful in the GT300 class, winning numerous podiums in the early 2000s. In 2003, Vemac introduced an even more powerful RD350R, trashed was the NSX V6 and in was a new Zytec ZV348 V8 engine. However, the car proved to be a failure in GT500, plagued with reliability issues throughout countless of races. By 2004, a new RD408R model surfaced, now having a Mugen Power-sourced MF408S V8 engine tucked underneath. Although reliability issues dissapeared, a series of unfortunate events, mainly accidents, caused the RD408R to achieve mediocre success, much less than its GT300 predecessor. By 2009, the Vemac cars were officially retired for racing, as new bloods come about to track. As a final hurrah to their efforts, the company went full bonkers and created the RD408H, which essentially is an RD408 boosted with twin electric motors, culminating to an excessive 800PS worth of ponies. Unfortunately, 800PS was just too powerful to be entered into any racing class, hence, the RD408H remained shelved, forever becoming a prototype.
Fancy owning one of these speedsters? Unfortunately enough, the unique RD180 series is no longer in production, as supplies for B18C engines have been subsequently stopped. Considering that there are only 14 Vemacs in existence (and yes that means throughout the whole world), you'd be hard pressed to know that finding, or even attempting to buy an RD180 would be a pointless attempt. However, hope is not lost, and Vemac still accepts orders for their RD200 models, seeing that Honda still supplies fresh K20A engines as of when this article is posted. Such perfection doesn't come the slightest bit of cheap unfortunately; to get your hands on a brand new Vemac RD200, be sure to cash in a minimum amount of ¥8,796,000, which roughly equates to USD 70,000. As the saying goes, where there's quality, there's price, and the Vemac is certainly not an exception to this fact. If you are an individual who enjoys the best of performance driving and are willing to sacrifice a few creature comforts (as well as some of your hard-earned bills) to experience what could be conceived as pure driving expression, whilst maybe trying to be a little less orthodox than the common Elise enthusiast, look no further.
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