Look inside a brand-new luxury car and there’s a good chance you’ll find Bose speakers all around. In another timeline, though, you’d also find Bose equipment underneath the car as a skunkworks operation spent decades developing a trick electromagnetic suspension system. It started in 1980 with involvement from Dr. Amar Bose himself, the company’s founder who had a hunch this tech would work, and the team showed off a working Lexus LS400 prototype in 2004. That same car performed a demo which you might remember from 2016—the car literally jumped over an obstacle, wowing millions of people who watched the clip online.
Now, that very prototype has been bought and sold with no chance of jumping again as it gets dismantled for parts.
There’s a good reason why, which I’ll explain here. But before we get into the car’s rich backstory that involves years of development and supposedly more than $100 million in research, you have to watch this video to understand what it was all about:
Clearly, the work done by the Project Sound skunkworks crew was anything but ordinary. As the Bose suspension program’s chief engineer Neal Lackritz explained in layman’s terms what the technology does: It keeps the car flat and level at all times. They achieved this by fitting a linear electromagnetic motor at each corner in place of the springs and dampers, allowing the wheels to move up and down almost entirely independently of the body. And while the jumping feature was never intended to reach production, it showed the system’s unbelievable ability to read the road and react accordingly.
Project Sound eventually shuttered as Bose found the suspension was too heavy and expensive for any major production roll-out. All the patents, software, and Bose Ride business were sold to a company called ClearMotion in 2017, which was developing what it calls “the world’s first proactive ride system.” The Lexus LS400 demo vehicle was included in the sale, as was the grey car with conventional suspension and a second example featuring the electromagnetic setup. Each one was parked in storage and stayed there the entire time ClearMotion held ownership.
Then, ClearMotion sold all three Lexus LS400s involved in Project Sound to Tom McVay. He’s a testing engineer at the company who agreed to purchase the vehicles under the strict condition that all core prototype parts be removed. I caught up with him online and got the scoop.
“The company went through a downsizing effort and no longer wanted to store the cars and had no use for them,” McVay told me. “If I had not purchased the cars they would have likely been scrapped.”
“I would have loved to have seen these cars perhaps restored to their former glory but as like most prototypes they are destined for destruction or dismantled for parts,” he continued. “The two active suspension vehicles had custom subframes, fully billet machined spindles and control arms, custom brakes, etc. Without having the key components these had no hope of ever going on the road and even then would have required significant time and cost to get everything functional.”
He daily drives the stock grey Lexus seen in the CNET video above, and he uses the second prototype not shown in the demo for parts. It essentially keeps the conventional suspension example on the road, though McVay says he “removed the low-mile drivetrain to be used in another project of mine.” As you can tell from the photos, it would take an immense amount of work to return the electromagnetic prototype vehicle to stock.
This brings us to the white LS400 demo car seen in all the promotional material. McVay kept it for a time but decided to sell it on Facebook Marketplace, which understandably caught people’s attention. I saw it shared to a group with photos of the car and its inner workings, then underneath, there was a comment from one Michael Morgan: “I just bought it.”
I hit him up right away. He actually connected me with McVay, who caught me up to speed while Morgan explained his plans for the car. Like the grey active suspension prototype that McVay kept, it’s not good for much aside from random non-suspension parts harvesting. Morgan specifically acquired it for the low-mileage 1UZ V8 under the hood, which is bound for a customer’s 1995 Toyota 4Runner project. “I jumped on the opportunity because it’s probably the only remaining LS400 in existence with 53,000 miles,” Morgan said. “The car was impeccably maintained. It even had a timing belt replaced at 33,000 miles, so it’s going to be perfect for my intentions.”
That might make you sad—I get it. But looking at the car in its current state shows there’s no chance of a revival. While Morgan describes its condition as “near-showroom,” many of the modifications are irreversible, and the electromagnetic motors have long been removed.
“The reason why the car sits up so high is because it’s set up static on round metal tubes up front set between the strut towers and upper control arms,” Morgan said. “The rear is set up the same way but with 2×6 planks of wood.”
Rather than letting this get you down, look at what has been preserved. Not only will the V8 engine go on to power another vehicle, but there are also time capsules like the Nokia cell phone with a car dock on the dash so it connects to the LS400’s audio system. The interior upholstery is darn near perfect, and while the outside is a bit dusty, it’s still one of the better-looking examples left.
“As far as what the plan is for it afterward, my client fronted the money for the car, so he’d like to see it either sold off whole or parted out to recoup some funds for the work we’re doing for his 4Runner,” Morgan said. “Given the history of the car, I may just work out a deal with him to keep the car. I don’t know what I’d do with it and my wife/business partner would probably kill me if I did that, but we’ll see.”
It hurts to think about but the world is cruel to automotive archaeology specimens like this. Not that there are many cars like the Project Sound LS400s out there, but so many concepts and high-tech prototypes have bit the dust due to regulations or corporate agreements. When a car can’t be registered for road use, it becomes a yard ornament at best and a crushed cube of metal at worst. And storing a car, let alone multiple can be tough when space is limited.
A lot has changed since Project Sound began, too. Dr. Bose passed away in 2013, the program’s chief engineer Neal Lackritz moved on and is inventing patented tech with Apple, and ClearMotion is focused on its software-centric, electro-hydraulic core called the Activalve that’s at the center of its proactive ride system. However, at this moment all three of the LS400s remain, nodding to their unique developmental past in some way or another.
These cars might never jump again, but just knowing they’re still around perks me up.
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