Many companies claim their latest sports cars are akin to "racing cars for the road", but very few get anywhere near that mark in reality--the average race car would be borderline unusable on most streets. British sports car manufacturer Radical claims its RXC is a practical, everyday car though--and now it's a practical everyday car that you can legally buy in the U.S.

The racing prototype-aping sports car has passed required tests for road registration in California, in Radical's words "paving the way for road registered RXC and RXC Turbo sales across the USA". Compatibility with U.S. rules and regulations is something low-volume British sports car manufacturers have traditionally struggled with, but the RXC meets all relevant type approval regulations in visibility, crash safety, noise and emissions, allowing it to be sold in the States.

Whether you'd want to drive one in some states and particular weather conditions is doubtful, but there'd be little to touch it on just about any smooth, twisty road you can name. Beneath the engine cover is a 3.7-liter Ford-supplied V-6 engine rated at 380 horsepower and 320 pound-feet of torque, but a turbocharged version is also available--the Ford 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 develops 454 horses and 500 lb-ft of torque, for a 2.6-second 0-60 sprint and 185 mph top speed. All in car that tips the scales at less than 2,000 lbs.

This sort of performance never comes cheap, though. According to Autoblog, you're looking at $171,280 for the entry level car and another $28,960 to get yourself a Turbo. You could buy all sorts of metal for that sort of cash, and it only gets more eye-watering as you add $3k of carbon fiber options or $5,000 for air conditioning. Customers are required to put down a 25 percent deposit, too.

But short of a street-legal dragster or spending hundreds of thousands more on a Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR, you aren't going to get much closer to that "race car for the road" feel.

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