On the Road With the 2011 Lexus LFA by Inside Line
Feb 17, 2010 | 09:27 AM
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On the Road With the 2011 Lexus LFA by Inside Line 
"It's mid-January and Britain is going through one of those winter thaws where the whole island seems covered in grime. The 2011 Lexus LFA has just emerged from the workshop where technicians have spent the past hour pretending to do things to its giblets and crazy multiform surfaces. And now, whiter than the Stig's iPod, the LFA sits bang outside the showroom doors. You wonder if its angelic cleanliness is the result of some new scum-repelling lacquer developed purely for the Lexus supercar.
We have four hours with this car. That would be four hours in a $375,000, 552-horsepower car developed almost exclusively at the Nürburgring. Four hours in a car that is claimed to reach 100 km/h (62 mph) from a standstill in 3.7 seconds and that will apparently touch 202 mph. Four hours in a car that is intended to sprinkle magic dust on the Lexus brand.
But unlike anyone else in the world, we're going to spend four hours in the 2011 Lexus LFA on the roads of the real world, not just a racetrack. Our mission is to deliver one of the world's most expensive production cars to a Lexus showroom in the exclusive London district of Mayfair, so we have four hours to wend as epic a path through rural Bedfordshire as is possible.
The Starting Ritual
We set a course for some cracking technical roads not far from the Lexus technical center in Milton Keynes. Some young hoon in a drift-homage Nissan 240SX nearly swallows his tongue when he spies the Lexus, pointing and jabbering as flecks of spittle shower the inside of the Nissan's side window.
We were impressed ourselves as soon as we experienced the theatrical moment of rousing the 2011 Lexus LFA from its sleep. You enter the cabin by pushing down on a recessed flap on the door, and after the latch surrenders with a recognizable Lexus-style ker-thonk, the featherweight door glides toward you. Tumble down into the cozy chair, use the typically silent Lexus electric motors to perfect the seating position and then manually adjust the steering wheel. Before you plunge the key into the ignition barrel, admire its solid billet of titanium shrouded in carbon-fiber.
One turn of the key seems to ignite the instrument binnacle, as the Thin Film Transfer (TFT) display lights up. The tachometer pulses with dramatic reds and whites, and the redline is all the way up at 9,000 rpm. With your right thumb, you push the ignition button on the steering wheel and the starter motor spins with that distinctive high-pitched shriek that tells you there are lots of pistons on the move. Then all 10 cylinders catch with a demure brrrraaaap from the triple exhausts, and finally the 4,805cc V10 settles into a composed, judder-free idle.
We'll tell you, this thing feels indescribably special at idle. We just didn't expect the exquisite amalgam of tailor-made supercar detail and mass-produced Lexus quality and refinement.
We're Rolling
In order to save weight, the 2011 Lexus LFA disdains the usual dual-clutch automated manual for a racing-style single-clutch automated manual. First gear selects seamlessly, but then the transmission shudders through the 1st-to-2nd change.
The throttle response borders on the immediate, which takes some getting used to, and the Lexus technician riding in the passenger seat must think us an incompetent fool as the car stammers the first few yards. The only engine as free-revving and responsive as this that we've ever experienced has been the Porsche Carrera GT's 612-hp 5.7-liter V10. The resemblance is uncanny, from the heavy, lash-free action of the throttle pedal to the rabid way the engine accumulates revs. Even the noise is there — higher-pitched than the V10s from Audi, BMW and Lamborghini, more shriek than warble.
The LFA's ride is busy but not jarring, and the refinement is pretty good given that the subframes that locate the suspension are hung from a stiff carbon-fiber tub that is bound to transmit vibration. These wide, specially made Bridgestone tires — 265/35ZR20s in front, 305/30ZR20s in the rear — grumble on anything less than virgin asphalt, plus there's some suspension noise as well, but overall the 2011 Lexus LFA feels about as relaxed on the pavement as a Ferrari 599 GTB, which makes it entirely happy as we trundle away.
This isn't a car in which the mere flex of a right toe has you surging past lesser traffic. The pedal works in a great arcing motion and this offers the driver more control over the energy released to the rear differential. So you squeeze the throttle a little farther each time on this damp surface, feel the tires claw at the tarmac and then push deeper into the footwell, hoping to trigger the traction control and, at the very least, understand where the electronics think the limit exists under such conditions."
For the rest of the article and Source -->> On the Road With the 2011 Lexus LFA
Feb 17, 2010 | 09:44 AM
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From the sounds of that article, the LFA sounds like quite the techonological masterpiece. The interior sounds like a cut above the rest but it still doesn't light any fires for me.
I wish Lexus the best with this car but I'm expecting the worst.
I wish Lexus the best with this car but I'm expecting the worst.
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