Ford, GM, and Chrysler dominated 20th century car sales thanks to their massive size and ability to scale production to meet demand. While innovative automakers have tried, and failed to take on the Big Three by replicating their methods, Local Motors has tried totally different methods involving buying participation and crowdsourcing, resulting in the popular and awesome Rally Fighter.

Comedian and car aficionado extraordinaire Jay Leno recently had a chance to get his mitts around the steering wheel of the Local Motors Rally Fighter, meeting with company CEO Jay Rogers to talk about the why, when, and how of this unique ride.

For the uninitiated, Local Motors crowdsourced the design for the Rally Fighter, turning to a devoted team of car designers to come up with a unique looking vehicle that can be crafted from easy-to-find-parts. While the chassis and body panels are custom, Jay Rogers explains that the E-ROD LS-series engine comes from GM, the brake master cylinder comes from Ford, the taillights from Honda, so on and so forth. This allows for cheaper sourcing of parts, rather than designing something from the ground up.

Not only that, but the Rally Fighter is a car built by you… with some help from professionals of course. Rogers has pioneered the idea of “micro-factories” where buyers show up and help put together their Rally Fighters in a special assembly line. Once Leno gets behind the wheel, he seems to have a lot of fun rocking the Rally Fighter on and off road. If you’re into unique, special rides, you gotta check out this episode of Jay Leno’s garage.