LEXUS LFA: MILE-HIGH EXPECTATIONS
STORY | Steve Theodore
PHOTOGRAPHY | Brendan Stouffer
They say you should never meet your heroes—that it’s better not to test the reality of your heroes against your hopes and expectations. But for a lifelong Lexus and Toyota fan like me, it was hard to turn down the opportunity to meet the most heroic modern Lexus, the LFA.
I was primed to be disappointed. How could this car possibly live up to Jeremy Clarkson’s claim that it is “the best car I’ve ever driven,” or Chris Harris’s naming it “one of the most impressive road cars” in the world? Add to that, when I was handed the keys to the car by the fine folks from Blue Chip Automotive in Denver, Colorado, they suggested that this was “the single greatest road car in the entire world.” Could this Japanese marvel match up to such praise? We were about to find out.
A BOLD EXPERIMENT
I have a somewhat embarrassing confession: when the LFA debuted back in 2011, I was not a big fan. As a lifelong Toyota and Lexus fan, someone who has owned, driven, and worked on the best of their cars, I’d wanted to like it—but I couldn’t get over the high price and lack of raw performance specs.
I understood the car’s heritage: Toyota was known for its engineering, quality, and commitment to detail. They had set world-class standards around just-in-time manufacturing and had set the quality bar so high other manufacturers scrambled to compete. The LFA would showcase these qualities, then exceed them by adding levels of performance Toyota had rarely put into production.
The project that became the Lexus LFA started all the way back in the year 2000, at a bar. Aided by a few drinks, Haruhiko Tanahashi dreamt up what he believed could be a proper supercar and scribbled a quick conceptual sketch onto his napkin. His boss, Tetsuo Hattori, was pleased with what he saw, and the two men then ordered another round in celebration. The idea was born … but it took years to bring it to life.
As the story goes on, design studies were ordered and ideas evaluated; many were struck down cold. One of the most contentious areas of debate was over which material to use to create the chassis and body. At that point Toyota had no experience working with carbon fiber except for their Formula One cars, and they considered it far too slow and expensive to consider for volume manufacturing. Because reducing weight was so important, they overcame these concerns and made huge investments in both knowledge and materials building one of the most advanced carbon-fiber reinforced plastic looms in the world.
Legend has it that during its development cycle, the LFA project was always a top target for termination within Toyota. Since the project was known to be extremely expensive and quite likely to be unprofitable, it was looked at every single year as a target to be cancelled. Only passion and perseverance kept this project going, and top brass at the company knew that it would really help to showcase Toyota and Lexus in the best light possible on the global automotive stage. A project of this ambition and scope would likely not have survived a few years later, when a declining global economy and Toyota’s internal politics would have doomed it.
When the LFA ultimately debuted in 2011, the price was set at $375,000. That price far exceeded that of any Toyota-badged product, and yet Toyota’s marketing team failed to convince the motoring press or the public of its worth. Adding to price problem, the performance specifications of the car simply didn’t match up to those of cars made by McLaren, Ferrari, and Lamborghini. Critics dinged Toyota for not bringing enough horsepower and for using a single-clutch automated gearbox, instead of the faster and more responsive dual-clutch unit that others were bringing to market. Only its sublime handling was deemed worthy of comparison to other cars in its class.
Sales of the LFA started slowly. Toyota hoped that its 500 units would move quickly, but published news reports still had five new LFAs sitting on dealer lots as of January 2020.
Despite this chilly early embrace, enthusiasts have slowly come around to recognize the magic that was bottled in the LFA. Recent auctions of LFAs have crested above $700,000 and a particularly rare and low-mileage Nürburgring edition sold on Bring a Trailer for $1,625,000 in 2022. I wouldn’t be surprised to see LFAs regularly selling in the seven figures before long.
DRIVING THE LFA
The best way to experience the magic of the LFA is to drive it. Due to the rare and now coveted nature of these special cars, one does not get that experience very often. But I had a chance to drive the car thanks to a special group of people at Blue Chip Automotive, in Denver, Colorado. Blue Chip provides specialized management, curatorial, and technical service for investment-grade automobiles.
You’ve likely heard about the car’s specifications by now. The majestic 4.8-liter 1LR-GUE V10 powering the LFA was developed in collaboration with Yamaha and features titanium valves and connecting rods, forged pistons, individual throttle bodies, dry-sump lubrication, and dual VVT-i variable valve timing. Factory-rated output was 552 horsepower at 8,700 rpm and 354 lb-ft of torque at 6,800 rpm. (The even rarer Nürburgring Package cars got 563 horsepower.) Maximum revs topped out at 9,000, and the resulting sound was nothing less than a Formula One-inspired crescendo that sounds far better in real-life than any YouTube video could ever sound.
As impressive as these stats are, they are nothing compared to how the car makes you feel. Let’s start with the obvious: the sounds, my god the sounds this engine can make. Forget the videos or online reviews: nothing comes close to what you experience in person. In person you get to hear and feel the car as it hums and builds to higher revs, and the surprising take-away is that the car sounds and feels great at every point in the experience.
The level of tactile feedback this car provides borders on the extraordinary, even the supernatural. Toyota engineers are among the greatest in the world when they focus on details, and with the LFA they have outdone themselves. Every surface and every part in the car communicates a sense of purpose, of form meeting function, and you can imagine just how long it took to get it right. In this, they meet designer Tanahashi’s intentions: “I intended to build a supercar that would take the driver to this state through the unity of its parts—the engine’s sound, its feel when revving, its handling and stability. I wanted to create a state of euphoria.”
But was a single-disc manual transmission going to create a state of euphoria? The early reviews said no, that it detracted from the driving experience. But they were wrong. By using a “slower” technology to change gears, Toyota managed to increase the level of interaction with this great machine. Unlike with some of the other brands who used similar technology (cough, Lamborghini), shifting this car never disappoints, and the sounds and feelings of the transmission are much more akin to driving a traditional manual transmission than many of the faster and more advanced dual-clutch gearboxes. Thoroughly engaged by the driving, I never once yearned for a faster or smoother shifting experience.
The car’s handling was stable and playful, never nervous or scary. I took few chances with someone else’s valuable car, but I did enjoy several visits to 8500 RPM and took some great sweeping corners during my drive. The car’s handler (from Blue Chip) pushed the car even harder on tighter turns, revealing a car that is composed, compliant, and quite friendly. This is a car that really wants to help you enjoy the experience rather than create drama for you. Chassis number 033/500 showed us the greatness that made the LFA the fastest road car at the Nürburgring when the record was set with a mighty lap time of 7:14.64 seconds on Bridgestone Potenza RE070 tires.
So, you’re wondering, what was it like to meet one of my heroes? After my short drive, I no longer wonder why the car elicits such praise. From the way it was conceived, designed, tested, and delivered, this is an exceptional vehicle that allows its lucky driver to experience some small form of what driving a proper V10-powered Formula One car might be like. From all accounts, this is a car that will stand the test of time, taking asking prices into supercar territory. With only 500 of these cars in the entire world, the LFA will always remain in the hands of the few. Perhaps it’s better that way, as the mystery and allure of this timeless and iconic car will assuredly remain the stuff of legend. This was truly a time when “meeting your heroes” led to no disappointments at all.
