Lexus LFA from Tokyo

After waiting nearly five years, the Lexus LFA is finally official. It will debut at the Tokyo Motor Show in a number of hours for the international press. No doubt, it will be compared to the Lamborghini Gallardo, Ferrari F458 and McLaren MP4-12C. Some people might call this Toyota’s first supercar, but that title really belongs to the 1999 GT1 which was homologated as a road car for the 24 Hours of Le Mans or, if we step back even further, the Toyota 200GT of 1967 .

For the last two years we’ve seen Lexus daringly race prototype versions of the LFA at the Nurburgring 24-hour endurance race. Two cars entered the event and were slow compared to the factory Porsches and Audi. This was part of a long development process which began nearly 10 years ago in 2000.

The first LF-A Concept appeared at the 2005 Detroit Motor Show and it sketched out the basic idea for the design. It includes a carbon fiber chassis with a front-mounted V10 engine powering the rear wheels through a six-speed sequential transaxle. Now nine year’s after development began we have a better understanding of why the LFA costs $350,000 USD.