Lightning LH4 Hybrid Unveiled in Denver

As we reported at the beginning of March, Lightning Hybrids was working around the clock to complete their LH4 hybrid in time for the official unveiling at the 2009 Denver Auto Show. The manufacturer succeeded in doing so and the concept had its first encounter with the automotive world.

"The spring snow storm last week left parts stranded and put us behind schedule. We have a very hard-working crew that has gave it everything they’ve got to make up some time. Yes, it was tight - really tight. But we are very pleased with the car and with the response we have received from people at the show,” Dan Johnson, Lightning Hybrids CEO said in a release.

The LH4 concept is a four-seater sports sedan and is said to be able to hit sixty in under six seconds and go for as much as 100 miles per gallon (2.35l/100km) on biodiesel fuel. The car will also be available in a three-wheeled four-seat version, called the LH3.

The LH4 will become available in 2011 (with it's LH3 version coming a year earlier) and the company claims it already has a waiting list for the vehicle (hopefully, they'll got for a paint job by then). In addition, the heart of the vehicles, the hydraulic-biodiesel hybrid drivetrain, will be available as a retrofit kit, sometimes in 2010.

That's about all the information we have at this point regarding the LH4, but, as you can see for yourselves, it must be one of the "coolest" car we have seen so far. Not as in "I'd gotta get me one", but as in "all that metal makes me cold". For some unknown reason, (could it be the snow storm Johnson mentioned?) the LH4 was presented to us in a chromed-chilling-but-naked-metal look which really doesn't do the vehicle any justice.