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Supercar Leo Coupe.

Flying supercar Leo Coupe from ex-designer Mazda: 400 km / h and a guarantee of a soft landing.

The Leo Coupe, the brainchild of the American startup Urban eVTOL, is notable for the fact that it looks more like a regular car than other similar projects.

Interesting projects of air vehicles, which in theory can become a full-fledged, but relatively inexpensive alternative / replacement for ground private transport.

Urban eVTOL (UEV) was founded last year by Pete Bitar and Carlos Salaff. Bitar is a recognized expert in the development of light vertical takeoff aircraft, collaborating with DARPA and NASA.

Saluff is a renowned automotive designer who spent ten years at Mazda’s North American studio (the great Furai concept is his work) and founded his own studio in 2013.

UEV is an attempt by both founders to further develop their creative and organizational skills with a good monetization perspective.

Already next year, UEV promises to present a working prototype of the Leo Coupe, which is similar in size and appearance to a regular sports car, that is, it takes about the same amount of parking space.

The body with integrated box fenders is made of carbon fiber.

Landing formula — 1 + 2. The centrally located pilot’s seat is attached to the roof on a hinge and can be deployed to the passengers in unmanned mode.

The floor is made transparent for panoramic views and more accurate aiming of the vehicle when landing in manual mode.

A large screen with a flight map and other accompanying information is implanted into the back of the pilot’s seat.

For takeoff and landing, there are 16 electric rotors mounted in the wings (six in the front, ten in the rear), the direction is set by the steering group of six rotors located in front, and the rotors in the stern are responsible for horizontal flight.

In the presentation pictures, the number of movers is different, but according to Bitar, who is quoted by New Atlas magazine, the UEV website simply presents the most beautiful renders available, and the final design will be slightly different.

The rotors take electricity from a modular battery with a capacity of 66 kWh, it consists of several parts, distributed over the body based on the optimal weight distribution.

The flight range is 300 miles (482 km) or 1 hour and 15 minutes in the air, not counting a few extra minutes for takeoff and landing. The maximum flight speed is 250 mph (402 km / h).

For takeoff and landing, the developers want to use a soft platform of their own design, which can be quickly deployed, for example, on the roof of a house, but you can also sit on a hard surface — for this Leo Coupe is planned to be equipped with special adaptive rubber pads Cat’s Paws (translated as «cat’s paws» ), which are developed in conjunction with one well-known tire company.

Cat’s Paws allow you to hold the aircar without an anchor, including on an incline.

As a safety net, the Leo Coupe will have a reactive airbag that will soften the impact in the event of an uncontrolled or too fast descent.

Thanks to Bitara’s connections, the startup already knows the suppliers of all components for its aircar, but the developers cannot yet say for sure when it will be available for sale, since it does not fall under any known class of aircraft, and, therefore, cannot yet be legalized.

Most likely, government organizations (for example, emergency services working in hard-to-reach places) will become the first consumers of an atypical flying machine, and only then the Leo Coupe will go to retail.

Bitar claims that even with an annual production of less than a hundred aircars a year, the price of one will not exceed $ 290,000 — a «penny» compared to other road supercars.