Motor Company of Lucis (MCL)

The Beginning (1959).
MCL was founded in 1958, by the british Joshua Auron Lucis, a rich man, who's biggest desire was to create all sorts of vehicles on the automotive field, however, MCL's history starts on 1956. Joshua took advantage of his enormous fortune and invested all on what he called Motor Company of Lucis, using the eagle as it's logo, meaning power and elegance, just the image he wanted for his vehicles. He knew that England would not be a propper home for his company, so he flied to Japan, where he knew he would find the right people to make his dream come true.

Joshua worked hard on his new dream, getting the best people to work on it, all kind of mechanics and engineers, all he could afford to make his biggest dream a reality. By January 1957, he had a place to start, a small factory on Gunma's prefecture, on Honshu's Island, Japan. He had the factory and a team of designers to work with. However, designing a vehicle wasn't exactly an easy duty, so MCL's first products were motorcycles,

On June from 1958, the first concept was created, A 4-seater Rear Wheel drive sedan, with a boxy design and low performance, despite Joshua wanted to go easy with MCL's first production car, he did not wanted to do something generic, he wanted to shine above all the other Japanese companies, so the first concept was quickly thrown away.

It was until November from 1959 that the second concept saw the light, this time being a rear engine-rear wheel drive 2 seater, with a slick and aerodynamic design, a car designed under Joshua's crytical eye, to fullfill the need of a sporty, elegant and lightweight sports car, this concept was named MCL Alfa I. Automotive press loved the concept for being something fresh and different from the rest of japanese vehicles.

After such positives reviews, the Alfa I came into production, under the name of MCL Ifrit GT, equipped with a 2.5L V8 engine on the rear of the vehicle, using corrosion resistant monocoke and glass fiber body panels, something that made the vehicle weight go up to only 767 kg.

The car came to production in November 1959 as 1960 model. The Ifrit was a complete success, and started MCL's succesful history.

Nowadays, the Ifrit is a collectable piece, being able to keep up with some recen sports cars, going from 0 to 62 mph in just 6.3 seconds, making int a pretty fast car even for actual standards.

Also it's engine it's quite unique, the 2.5L V8 engine, named RS25A produced 218 HP at 7,100 rpm and 165 ft-lb of torque at 6,800 rpm. The engine displacement was not by chose, but by what Joshua had on his factory, using motorcycle pistons and conrods, that's the reason after producing a 2.5L V8 engine.

After the first success.
After the Ifrit successful debut, MCL began to develop more and more products, now focusing on many kinds of markets, however, focusing a bit more on stylish and elegant sporty vehicles, that's when the second hit came to live. The MCL Demyx in 1965, a lightweight and small convertible vehicle, designed to by a small, stylish but still practical and useful daily driver.

The Demyx was introduced in February 1965, with a 1.5L I4 engine, producing 76 HP and 68 lb-ft of torque, along with it's weight of only 863 kg, made this car a really fun to drive vehicle, excelent for road trips and and all-around driving.

The Demyx idea was born thanks to Joshua's wife, who believed that Japan needed some real convertible vehicles like the ones you could find in Europe. However, Joshua knew Japan market was not ready for big, long and expensive vehicles, so he took his wife idea on consideration and using the knowledge he got while living in Japan for almost a decade and the Demyx was born, a small, easy-to-drive convertible that fitted on Japanese market's taste.

Thanks to Joshua's friends, on 1966, MCL was able to get out of Japan, introducing his vehicles in the United States, and some Europe regions, but Joshua knew he had to create something special for the United States market. Of course the Demyx and Ifrit were well recived by the american market, his top models were no match for the powerful muscle and pony cars at that time, forcing Chris Rogers, the MCL American division's CEO and all his new team to develop something to propperly fight against the american big blocks.

Traveling through the sea.
MCL arrived to America on 1967, the Ifrit was the top-selling model on Japan and had a great market in Europe, receiving some refreshments on the design and drivetrain, but USA was a way tougher market. MCL wasn't in a bad position at all, the Ifrit and Ignis were interesting concepts, but MCL USA was not goin to survive only with those two vehicles, because, MCL's small sedans were not good at all in sales, at least on the States.

Due to this, Rogers and his team developed two new vehicles to go all out on this brand new market for MCL. was in 1966, MCL North America presented the MCL Revali S320 and R427, a small and big block (Depending on the version) muscle car, created to fight fair and square against America's greatest muscle cars.

The Revali was a muscle car in all fact, producing around 231HP and 266 lb-ft of torque on the S320 version and 321HP and 373 lb-ft of torque on the R427 version. MCL America created some serious muscle cars, that were attractive for americans. At the beginning, they refused to change their all-life american vehicles, but when they tried the Revali, their perspective of MCL's muscle car changed in a radical way, making this car, one of the best-sellers in MCL's history.

Because you never have enough big blocks.
After the success of the Revali, MCL America wanted to create something else, something that would really catch the American rich guy's eye, so they started to work on somethin better and more luxurious than the Revali, something big, powerful and comfortable. Following Joshua's ideology of "Creating cars for everyone in the world", they decided to create a luxurious and competitive vehicle among the luxury muscle cars, and in that moment, the Rudania was born.

The Rudania was presented on December 1969 as a 1970 model, it had a massive 7.0 Liters V8 push-rod engine, producing 335HP and 398 lb-ft of torque, just enough to move this 1,855 kg massive vehicle.

The Rudania wasn't a failure, but it wasn't the success Rogers was expecting, selling a bit lower than the expectations, and the petrol crisis on the mid 70's made things even worse for this huge luxury coupe.

The petrol crisis striking on MCL.
USA petrol crisis striked hard on MCL's big block vehicles, and the Ifrit was discontinued on 1970, making the Demyx the only real money fountain for MCL at the time of 1974, however, the Demyx was an old vehicle, and wasn't as sold as MCL would need it to be, so they worked hard during a year to develop Revali's second generation.

The new Revali came with two different engines, an I4 2.2L OHC engine, producing 118HP and 131 lb-ft of torque, making the Revali, once again the MCL's American division savior.

The second engine was a 5.0L V8 engine, producing 170HP and 266 lb-ft of torque on the SS version. However, in 1977, and wanting to mantain the Revali's status as a high performance Vehicle, MCL released the HS or Hyper Sport package, with a customiced version of the 5.0L V8, but porducing this time 263HP and 305 lb-ft of torque, making the Revali, one of the most powerful cars of it's time.

Eventually, MCL kept evolving and delivering more impressive cars on all the markets were MCL vehicles were produced, the petrol crisis could not stop MCL from becoming stronger and bigger.

Taking care of home bussiness.
Back in Japan, MCL had grown extremely big, habing all kind of cars, from simple daily-driver sedans, to really impressive sports cars, in 1980, MCL Japan introduced the Ruta Sport Turbo, a compact sports car, designed to compete with the JDM sports coupes, following the concept of Japanese sports cars, small engines with a big capacity to surprise everyone.

The MCL Ruta Turbo Sport was a very capable sports vehicle, being able to face the MCL North America's Revali, using his F-series Turbo engine, an I4 2.4L turbocharged engine, which produced 246HP and 229 lb-ft of torque.

Despite the lack of power, compared to the Revali, the Ruta was way lighter, not even weighting 1,200kg, making it easy to drive and pretty quick on the track.

The Ruta was a very popula car in Japan, being an extremely best-seller on MCL's history, and also being considered by Joshua Lucis itelf as one of the best designs on MCL History.

Joshua's dead and Xavier's take on the company.
Joshua passed away in 1996, at the age of 65 years, that left his son, Xavier Lucis as head of MCL. Most of MCL's executives did not trust on the 23 years old new CEO, however, Xavier was always paying attention at his dad since he was a kid, also learning his father ideals and manners, making him an ideal succesor for Joshua.

On that same year, Xavier finished his father's last project, a brand new sports car codenamed "Shark". Xavier worked himself on the car, supervising everything and even tuning the car, learning from his father, he went even further, by creating a sedan entry model of this Shark project.

On September 1996, the Shark project was revealed as the MCL Auron, having 5 trim levels, starting with the Auron Start and being the top trim level the RS2.

The Start packed a 1.6L I4 engine, producing above 110HP and 100lb-ft of torque, making it a perfect grossery getter for small families.

On the other hand, the RS2 packed a 2.7L V6 Twin turbo engine, producing 300HP and around 290 lb-ft of torque with an AWD sistem, making the RS2 one of the fastest sports cars of it's time.

Other important car on MCL's histor under Xavier's command, was the Cirice, a low-cost super car that was able to beat some of the best European vehicles ot it's time, from 1991 to 1999, being the top trim level, the HS1 introduced by Xavier on Augus 1996.

New millenium.
MCL created more and more cars for the uncoming 2000's in order to fulfill all the demand they had on their different markets, making MCL a really succesful company, Xavier showed in just 4 years, he had what it takes to be the head of such a huge company such as MCL was, the Auron was a complete success, being the firs MCL Japan's car to be imported to America and defeat the MCL Revali's in terms of sales, despite the Revali selling more than 180,000 units just in 2001. The Auron sold more than 185,000 units on the same year, only in the USA.

Seeking after more pressence on the European market, Xavier bought what was left of Inshubi Motors Company (IMC), borrowing some engines to his new sub-brand, MCL also gave IMC freedom to develop vehicles and engines. In 2005, the IMC Lince came back to life, using the brand new Auron's platform, sharing on their top trims, IMC developed V6 engine. Just the start of a whole new generation of vehicles..

2010's Innovation.
On this decade, MCL went all out with their innovations, being from the first ones on using electric and variable electric directions on most of their cars (Even the entry cars), showing the level of quality they had.

Vehicles such as the little MCL Tebah had electric direction and most of the amenities a car should have. This car was a very popular vehicle and it stills on production today, of course, after a facelift and eventually a new generation will come soon.



From now on, you'll se pictures of MCL's most popular cars from the late 2010's and 2020.