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2012 Lexus LFA

2012 Lexus LFA

Even in our gilded age of $5 coffee libations and $10,000 plasma TVs, the price shocks like a hornet sting: a Toyota that costs... nearly $400,000.
True, the limited-edition, two-seat, rear-drive LFA supercar, due to appear here in early 2011, will hide its Toyota roots behind the velvet rope of its maker's Lexus brand, but the sticker is staggering nonetheless. The most expensive model in the current Lexus portfolio, the LS 600h hybrid luxury sedan, starts at $106,910.
"The LFA is a halo car for the F marque," says national manager for Lexus Advanced Business Development Paul Rohovsky, referring to the Lexus F performance division (think "AMG Mercedes") behind the IS F sport sedan. Indeed, Rohovsky is candid: "The LFA will raise passion for the brand, an admitted Lexus shortcoming," he says.
How do you inject "passion" into a lineup encompassing supremely competent but generally narcotic offerings like the RX 350 sport/ute and even the vaunted LS 460 premium sedan? To Toyota's way of thinking, you do a cannonball right into the pool currently occupied by the likes of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, and Porsche.
2012 Lexus LFA Rear Three Quarters View
Mind you, Toyota isn't diving in naked. "I have spent one-third of my career working on this single car," says LFA chief engineer Haruhiko Tanahashi, evidence not only of Tanahashi's tenacity but also of the LFA's unusually long gestation. Born of a clean-sheet concept etched in 2000, the first teaser car (then named LF-A) appeared at the 2005 Detroit show. Two years later came a revised concept; by then, camouflaged LF-A prototypes were making regular blitzes around the Nürburgring. Shadowy details emerged: Toyota was building a monster.
2012 Lexus LFA Front Three Quarter 3
As inspiration, Tanahashi turned to Toyota's Formula 1 racing program, then playing to 3.0-liter V-10 regulations. So it was that the team sculpted an all-new, naturally aspirated V-10, this one a 4.8-liter with a 72-degree bank angle (optimal for smooth firing with a five-throw crank), dry-sump lubrication to lower the center of gravity (no giant under-engine oil pan), and an individual throttle body for each cylinder. Though it can't match an F1 car for revs, the LFA V-10 still spins like Karl Rove on a Tilt-A-Whirl: Redline is 9000 rpm. And while relatively compact and light, the engine screams with 552 horsepower at 8700 rpm.
Like AMG powerplants, each LFA V-10 will be handbuilt by one man. In fact, there are two; both are employees of Yamaha (which also designed the V-10's heads). Each man will finish an engine every two days.
As you might expect, the six-speed transmission (a rear-mounted transaxle) is a paddle-shift auto-clutch manual, but, likely due to manufacturing dictates fixed long ago, it's a single-clutch unit -- not a contemporary dual-clutch design. No slouch at spin himself, Tanahashi says, "I wanted the more natural shifting feel of a regular manual."
The LFA first materialized in aluminum. But when even the light alloy didn't meet Tanahashi's fastidious weight targets, he largely scrapped it and opted instead for carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP). The final LFA chassis sports a CFRP central tub with aluminum subframes front and rear; the package is wrapped in carbon-fiber bodywork. Total weight savings versus aluminum: about 220 pounds. All CFRP work is performed in-house. It doesn't hurt that Toyota has a long history in textiles, but switching from sweaters to weaving carbon fiber required lavish expenditures in tech and tools. (Look for future Lexus CFRP as Toyota monitizes its investment.)
The LFA rides on an aluminum suspension, dual-control arms up front and a multilink setup at the rear. Steering features electric power assist so as not to deplete a dollop of engine output.
2012 Lexus LFA Door Interior
The cockpit is a feast of carbon fiber, leather, metal, and Alcantara. It's all beautifully executed, if for the most part conventional (on the central console sits the same haptic mouse-like controller you'll find in, say, a Lexus RX). That is, until you see the primary instrument display: Behind the wheel lies what appears to be an attractive analog tachometer-except it's a color TFT-LCD illusion. When you select one of the four driving-mode switches-normal, auto, wet, or sport-suddenly the tach changes in scale and color (i.e., from black to all white with a thick redline in sport mode). Or push another switch and the tach...glides out of the way to reveal a host of digital information beneath. Extreme cool. Tanahashi denies that he opted for the LCD simply for the wow factor: "At first we tried an analog tachometer. But the V-10 revs so fast, the tach needle couldn't keep up!"
Toyota supplied two LFA prototypes for drives across the German autobahn -- plus hot laps on the ultimate proving ground: the 13-mile Nordschleife. Only two months earlier, I'd driven the new Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Gullwing around the same "Green Hell," so I was especially keen to sample and compare this rival LFA
First impression: The LFA rides hard. Really hard. No variable shocks; the chassis is chef's choice only. On smoother stretches of autobahn, the stiffness is largely irrelevant, but it's not hard to imagine the LFA growing tiresome during extended drives on brittle roads. The V-10 is scintillating: It pulls hard, flaunts seemingly hidden torque (that light package), and propels the car ferociously (Toyota claims a 0-to-60 of 3.7 seconds and a top end of 204 mph). At 6000 rpm it's just screaming away -- with 3000 rpm left! The sound is racy, but nowhere near as arousing as a flat-plane-crank Italian V-8.
2012 Lexus LFA Front Three Quarter 2
Full-bore on the track, shifts are quick enough-but, again, the superstar blueboods with their dual-clutch boxes fare far better. Steering feel is solid, though when teasing out the limits the chassis is nervy. The LFA lacks the easy, "organic" feel of, say, the SLS AMG. In contrast, the Lexus is very much a "digital" car -- it brandishes all the requisite high-tech weaponry, yet it feels distant. It's the difference between a car from a company that's been making supercars for decades, and a car from a company that's making...well, it's first supercar ever.
Back to that price. Even at nearly $400K, Toyota admits it will lose money on every one of the 500 LFAs it will build. How much? Obviously, Toyota won't say. For comparison, base price of the carbon-fiber Mercedes SLR McLaren Roadster is $500,750.
2012 Lexus LFA Auto Mode Gauge
Remember, though, the LFA is first and foremost a corporate halo, a rolling Super Bowl ad intended to ignite passion and fire in a nonsupercar brand. Who really cares if the LFA itself loses a few deca-millions in the process? What matters is that the 500 cars do their part and set the hearts and pocketbooks of would-be Lexus buyers ablaze. (Incidentally, Toyota admits that LFA purchasers will be largely hand-selected for maximum visibility and marketing value.)
The Lexus LFA is an extraordinary feat of engineering. But surrounded by far less costly Ferrari 458s, Lamborghini Gallardo LP 550-2s, Chevy Corvette ZR1s...$82,000 Nissan GT -Rs!...as a supercar it will need to swim like Michael Phelps to keep from drowning in a very deep pool.