CNC Machinery Online Information

Buggy manufacturer Rage invested in a Haas TL-25 CNC lathe with sub-spindle and a Haas VF-2 CNC vertical machining centre, partly because of after-sales service

Fans of BBC’s Top Gear motoring programme will best-know presenter Richard Hammond for his headline-grabbing near fatal crash in a jet-powered dragster, earlier this year. They may also remember his second most famous moment - and arguably his most famous on-air quote - delivered to camera as he wrestled a rabid, 300hp based Bowler Wildcat 4×4 around a quarry pit somewhere in the UK.
In a moment of unbridled joy, and with a wanton disregard for the inevitable ridicule he’d later face from his co-presenters, Hammond threw his head back and exclaimed: ‘I am a Driving God!’ and so endeared himself to a nation of car-loving small boys of all ages, who could at least imagine what he felt like.

The only thing is the Bowler Wildcat costs GBP50,000, which is a lot of anyone’s money, even if it comes with a prime-time TV recommendation and motoring omnipotence as standard.

However, for about one third the cost of a Bowler, a small but expanding engineering business called Rage Motorsport in Dunstable will sell you an off-road buggy powered by a six-speed 180hp Honda Fireblade motorcycle engine, with a top speed of over 100mph.

It may not be Paris/Dakar ready like the Bowler, but it can still make you feel like someone has put the universe on fast-forward and will make you laugh until, like Richard Hammond, your inner teenager yelps with joy.

Rage Motorsport builds multi-terrain, extreme performance vehicles that make even average drivers - with bigger than average adrenal glands - feel immortal.They’re exhilarating, hilariously fast and beautifully engineered.

The Land Rover based Bowler does 0-60 in 4.8 seconds: Quick on the tarmac, let alone ploughing through sand dunes.

The top-of-the-range Rage weighs just 375kg and does 0-60 in just 3 seconds and is equally at home on the racetrack as it is off road.

It’s no wonder the orders are stacking up.

To meet demand, the company’s manufacturing operations are undergoing a major overhaul.

‘Up until recently, we’d been subcontracting all of the major machined parts,’ says Sales Director, Joe Adams, ‘ but we got to the point where we had to take stock of the situation and decide what our business objectives were.

If we were going to grow the product range and the company, we realised we’d have to take responsibility for all the quality critical operations.

We couldn’t depend on suppliers any longer.’ Twins Steve and Adam Gentil, who’d been making high-performance buggies for their own entertainment for around15 years, started Rage just 4 years ago.

‘Someone saw that they were making a world-class product and suggested that they put them into production,’ says Adams.

‘Neither of them had any professional engineering training, but they taught themselves how to design a balanced, finely tuned chassis and marry it to a high-powered motorcycle engine.

It sounds easy, but building something safe, fast and very driveable is no mean feat.

Some big automotive companies spend tens of millions to achieve the same thing.’ Before investing in a Haas TL-25 CNC lathe with sub-spindle and a Haas VF-2 CNC vertical machining centre, Rage took a careful look at what else was available.

‘We looked at machine tool models that were cheaper and some which were more expensive than the Haas machines, but we quickly concluded that we couldn’t do any better than the cost/specification of the US built machines,’ explains the company’s co-founder and director, Steve Gentil.

‘Also, others had recommended Haas to us - and told us that after sales service was second-to-none.’ Installed in June 2006, the two machines have been set to work producing a wide range of parts for the company’s increasingly popular and growing range of buggies.

Parts machined include front and rear hubs, uprights, discs, ball joints and exhaust flanges, to name but a few.

‘The exhaust flanges are quite tricky to machine,’ says Gentil.

‘They’re round on one side and oval on the other.

But complex components are simple to produce using the Haas machines, even for relative novices.

‘These are our first CNC machines, but to be honest we needn’t have worried about getting to grips with them.

We taught ourselves to program very quickly and we were making parts a day or so after they were installed.’ The legendary Haas CNC makes every Haas machine tool easy to operate.

With special Haas-only features like word-processor editing, one-button features, multi-function jog handle and Visual Quick Code programming, the Haas CNC is arguably one of the most user-friendly available, at any price.

‘Operating the machines is like driving a Rage off-road racing buggy,’ laughs Gentil.

‘They go wherever you point them, they’re responsive, and they won’t let you down.’ Rage machine’s parts manufactured from aluminium and mild, stainless and chromium steels.

Some, such as bearing sets, are machined to particularly tight tolerances, which, according to Steve, the Haas machines are more than capable of achieving.

‘We work the machines really hard,’ he says.

‘They’re currently running 24 hours a day to keep up with demand, but we’ve had few if any problems.

They’ve given us the quality and reliability we needed, so I’m pretty sure we’re going to be investing in more in the very near future.’ Around 10 buggies are built at a time, so batch sizes vary from 100-off up to 1600-off for items such as small wishbone tubes.

‘Installing our own in-house CNC machining facility has brought financial benefit, too,’ concludes Steve.

‘Not only have we gained greater control of our production schedules, enabling us to be more productive, but we’ve also cut our piece-part costs in half! Rage buggies have already become must-have weekend toys for hundreds of enthusiasts who typically claim that it’s the most fun you can have on four wheels.

They’re also fast-becoming the industry standard corporate-entertainment vehicle, not just for their high fun quotient, but also because of their inherent reliability.

‘More and more hospitality companies are choosing Rage buggies because they’re a safe investment,’ says Adams.

They’re rugged with very high standards of build-quality and engineering.

The frames are laser-cut, powder coated tubular space frames, they have cross-drilled stainless discs all round with two-pot Brembo calipers and we only use the best fittings, such as Cobra FIA approved race seats.’ There’s a road going version - the Road Rage! - currently in testing and there’s even talk of a race series or two.

‘The eventual aim is to have official approval from the racing authorities so we can set-up a UK, and eventually a world based series,’ says Adams, ‘perhaps with a purpose-built Rally-Cross version.’ For the time being, though, as the word spreads, Rage Motorsport is enjoying a ride almost as exciting as the one it sells.

Eventually tested by the Top Gear team against other, lesser buggies, Hammond and his larger than life colleague Jeremy Clarkson concluded that a Rage buggy was the one to lust after.

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