[citation needed] An amateur aircraft builder who had already built a Rutan VariEze, LeGare suggested a two-place side-by-side development of the Quickie equipped with a larger Volkswagen derived engine.

Pilot and passenger seating placement was close to the center of gravity, the integral wheel pants substantially reduced parasitic drag, and the tandem wing placement and decalage made for natural angle-of-attack limiting (i.e., natural stall recovery with a pitch buck onset).

The aircraft was a point design, configured at a time of high fuel prices, increasing costs for the sport pilot, and in the wake of the Bede BD-5.

[citation needed] The Q2 was configured as a "taildragger" with fixed (non-retractable) integral wheel pants at the tips of a forward wing with a noticeable adhedral.

The rudder pedals were cable-linked directly to a steerable tailwheel bellcrank, and then via secondary cables to the rudder; this per-plans configuration led to multiple runway mishaps resulting from damage to the fiberglass tailspring that supported the tailwheel bellcrank and subsequent loss of directional control.

The Q2/Q200 series of aircraft were highly sensitive to builder variation and required special attention to the ground angle of attack and tailwheel hinge geometry; and, at this stage of American kitplane development, prefabrication of critical components simply was not yet a feature.

[citation needed][9] The prototype Q2 was constructed in Canada by Garry LeGare at his Leg-Air Aviation, Ltd., facility in Langley, British Columbia.

[10] The airplane was constructed of fiberglass and resin over a foam core, similar to other Rutan designs; the wings essentially blue styrofoam billets cut to shape with a hot wire, followed by microslurry and resin/fiberglass layup; the fuselage was made up of one inch-thick foam slabs with microslurry and resin/fiberglass layup.

The fuselage shells were vacuum bagged in molds and made of inner and outer fiberglass facing with a 3/8 inch Clark foam core.