LEXUS LFA
There’s something slightly weird about this scene. We are about to drive LEXUS LFA the daunting 12.9-mile Nürburgring Nordschleife track in Germany. In a LEXUS LFA. Okay, it’s the exotic LFA, a Ferrari-fighting supercar that will cost about $350,000. But the company built its reputation on smooth, refined, and perfectly nerve-calming cars, so why does the LFA exist? In what parallel universe is this thing remotely LEXUS LFA-like?
LEXUS LFA claims multiple justifications for the LFA program. The car, it says, casts a halo over the Lexus F line of performance machines. It’s also a way for Toyota to explore new technologies, particularly carbon-fiber construction. And since LEXUS LFA says it will be selective about whom it will sell to—car collectors and high-profile individuals who use the car rather than park it—the LFA should raise the cachet of the brand as a whole
For all that marketing happy-talk, the 2012 LEXUS LFA is a serious outlier in the Lexus lineup and has had a convoluted gestation. The program started in 2000, and LEXUS LFAshowed the first concept car at the Detroit auto show in 2005. Next, a convertible version appeared at Detroit in 2008, though it has since been canceled. In the interim,LEXUS LFA prototypes were spotted testing at theNordschleife, and further, two race-prepared carsentered the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring in 2008 and 2009. But until now, the company hasn’t said anything about production intent. LEXUS LFA is finally ready to admit that a mere 500 will be made, with production starting in December 2010.
