Reviewed: 2011 Lexus LFA
Reviewed: 2011 Lexus LFA
From SupraForums.
Ryan Woon of Wide Open Throttle Motorsports and ungodly fast Toyota Supra modifier/driver fame, gives a real-world review of the newest hyper-car to make it to market, the Lexus LFA.
Enjoy!
"My LFA Track Day Experience"
by: Ryan Woon
I was fortunate to be chosen by Toyota to go out for an LFA track day at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, CA yesterday. Needless to say I was pretty excited when I found out it was for real and I'd be one of the first people in the US to get in one, AND on a road course and high speed oval. You see a lot of cool stuff on TV and you always think, why don't I get to do cool stuff like that? I was just thinking that the other day watching something and this was presented to me shortly after! It's not often you can get in a $400k Super Car on a track
I'll do a short write up of my impressions and share some information I now know about the car that many people probably don't know. Most people know my drag racing history but I spent as many years carting and road racing before I ever drag raced.
When I first got to the infield of the track the LFA was in the garage getting new tires and new brakes. I found that somewhat odd but also excited because I knew they had been driving the crap out of the car and the day would be full of hard driving instead of just cruising around. The first thing I noticed was the 15.5in carbon brakes. 6 piston, manufactured by Brembo, and the most potent braking system you can put on a car. The second thing I noticed was the full coil overs and remote reservior shocks. The car was on jack stands with all four wheels off and I knew I wouldn't get a chance to see it like that later so I was looking mainly at the suspension, sub frames, brakes, and the undercarriage. The car is flat black with a white leather interior and looks pretty menacing even with all the wheels off and up in the air. I was only in the shop for a few minutes before the presentation began.
There were only 5 of us there so it was a great opportunity to speak with the Toyota guys from marketing, tech, etc. The presentation was very informative and very well put together. I wish I had it recorded because they gave us all the facts and history with the car from concept to present day. Here are some fun facts about the car:
As I'm sitting here there are too many things I learned about this car and it would take forever so I'm moving on...
When I first got in the car I did a once over of the interior. The fit and finish is perfect as you'd expect. There are some subtle uses of visible carbon fiber, some nicely finished aluminum trim, and a lot of leather and suede with top stitching. Not sure if I mentioned this earlier but this matte black LFA is the only LFA in the US and will be for the next 6-8 months. It also has Mark Levinson audio and navigation and while we were on the track the a/c was blasting and the windows were up. The seat controls are all brushed aluminum and one very unique is both seat belts have air bags in them.
The driver for the track day is Scott Pruett a seven time winner of the Daytona. Even with him at the wheel the first lap I was nervous. I told him I drive 1700hp race cars and have never been nervous until right before we took off. I'm much happier in the drivers seat than riding but for this I sucked it up and jumped in I didn't get to drive the car for obvious reasons but I got to do a bunch of laps around the oval and infield road course with Scott.
I was the first to go in the car so we did a short cruise around the track and the car could easily be a daily driver. Shifting was smooth in the setting we first had it in, the ride was smooth (the surface was smooth of course), and the a/c was blasting. The car is also very quiet at idle and you don't realize how good it really sounds until you starting going through the revs. When he first matted the car we were at a low RPM and it was pretty torquey and it accelerated pretty well. Was it fast? Sure. Was it fast to me? No. Would it be fast to a normal person who doesn't have a 1500rwhp Supra? Most definitely. We started on the oval and we were doing about 130-135ish on the banked portion pulling over 2g's which was awesome. On the front straight we got to around 175mph. The infield has some good hard braking spots, a few slow corners and a few high speed ones as well. Putting in words how it felt being in the car is difficult but my best analogy is it felt like a 2500lbs awd car on slicks The car weighs 3200lbs. The way it handled the high speed corners was insane. The car NEVER got unsettled and I never ever got the sense the car was going to lose grip. When you're in high speed corners or even low speed more often than not you can feel a car "push" and you end up fighting the car. This car as he described it is ultra balanced and driving it is less about fighting with the car around the track and more of driving with the car. Every time I thought we'd get lose and slide the car just held tight and didn't miss a beat. Virtually zero body roll and the brakes were neck snapping as you'd expect. Obviously my experience is with one of the best drivers in the world so it was all very controlled yet he was driving VERY hard. There's not much I can say about the performance around the track other than it was phenomenal. It did everything exceptionally well and it could be daily driven with ease if you wanted to.
Very few cars impress me and I've seen just about everything, been in quite a few cars over the years, and this one I can honestly say trumps them all. I have a lot of experience with F1 style trannies like the LFA has and I've driven many miles with them (Ferrari 430) and the rev matching, shifting, and drivability of the LFA was unparalleled. Is it worth $400k? In my opinion yes. The technology and performance of this car is pretty unbeatable in stock form and there will only be 150 of them EVER to hit the US of 500 total to ever be produced. 75 will be delivered in 2011 and 75 in 2012. They will all be a lease purchase, something like $300k down, $100k residual and Toyota holds the title until the term is over. No milage stipulations. Am I trying to get one? Yes. Can I afford it? No. But I'll figure something out.
I just got back home but I wanted to get this up. I have a few pics and a video as well. I probably missed a few things, could have written a lot more but this is all I've got for now!
VIDEO:
[swf]http://www.youtube.com/v/TKGkelWSjo0&hl=en_US&fs=1&[/swf]
Ryan Woon of Wide Open Throttle Motorsports and ungodly fast Toyota Supra modifier/driver fame, gives a real-world review of the newest hyper-car to make it to market, the Lexus LFA.
Enjoy!
"My LFA Track Day Experience"
by: Ryan Woon
I was fortunate to be chosen by Toyota to go out for an LFA track day at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, CA yesterday. Needless to say I was pretty excited when I found out it was for real and I'd be one of the first people in the US to get in one, AND on a road course and high speed oval. You see a lot of cool stuff on TV and you always think, why don't I get to do cool stuff like that? I was just thinking that the other day watching something and this was presented to me shortly after! It's not often you can get in a $400k Super Car on a track
I'll do a short write up of my impressions and share some information I now know about the car that many people probably don't know. Most people know my drag racing history but I spent as many years carting and road racing before I ever drag raced.
When I first got to the infield of the track the LFA was in the garage getting new tires and new brakes. I found that somewhat odd but also excited because I knew they had been driving the crap out of the car and the day would be full of hard driving instead of just cruising around. The first thing I noticed was the 15.5in carbon brakes. 6 piston, manufactured by Brembo, and the most potent braking system you can put on a car. The second thing I noticed was the full coil overs and remote reservior shocks. The car was on jack stands with all four wheels off and I knew I wouldn't get a chance to see it like that later so I was looking mainly at the suspension, sub frames, brakes, and the undercarriage. The car is flat black with a white leather interior and looks pretty menacing even with all the wheels off and up in the air. I was only in the shop for a few minutes before the presentation began.
There were only 5 of us there so it was a great opportunity to speak with the Toyota guys from marketing, tech, etc. The presentation was very informative and very well put together. I wish I had it recorded because they gave us all the facts and history with the car from concept to present day. Here are some fun facts about the car:
- LFA stands for Lexus, Fuji, and A for the first letter of the alphabet. It was to be the first specialty car released but the ISF made it to production first
- The original chassis and body were aluminum and midway through the project, which started in 2000 they changed to a carbon fiber chassis and fiberglass panels
- Some of the testing numbers from tracks were with the alum chassis and some with the carbon fiber, but all have since been updated to CF
- Toyota has been in the Car industry for only 56 years, but they've been in the weaving (maybe called something else) for over 100 years
- Toyota owns one of two or both of the only machines in the world that weave and produce the carbon fiber used in the LFA. All the carbon work is done in house at Toyota. No one has been able to figure out how their machine works. There's a youtube video that someone can link of this machine and the manufacturing process of the carbon products
- 65% Carbon Fiber 35% Alum
- The massive rear aluminum subframe weighs a shocking 13lbs
- Single plate clutch and 6spd transmission. They kept the single for drivability, which I'll talk about shortly
- The gauge cluster is all digital and pretty trick. They did this mainly because there is no mechanical gauge in the world that can move fast enough to keep up with the revs which brings me to the next fun fact
- The car will rev from idle to 9500rpm is .6sec. It's ridiculous how fast it free revs
- Toyota teamed up with Yamaha to build the motor. Titanium rods, valves, etc.
- Yamaha also helped Toyota design the intakes, the firewall, the rear of the car and helped with all the tuning acoustics so the car would sound F1 like and so the passengers have the ultimate sound inside the cabin
- The motor is a 4.8L V10 and it's physically smaller than the motor in the IS250 in every dimension L W H and it's also lighter than the IS250 motor
- Brembo designed 15.5in Carbon brakes, 6 piston
- BBS Wheels
- Bridgestone has developed a new tire for this car that will be OEM equipment for Ferrari, Porsche and Lambo after it's debut on the LFA
- The center of gravity is very low and centered on the drivers seat. Most cars have it behind or in front and having it positioned right where the drivers sits makes for the most accurate and instant feedback
- Even the steering wheel was designed with the airbag to have a perfect center of gravity like all racing steering wheels even with no airbags
- Both seat belts have built in air bags
- Dry Sump with 10L of capacity
- Rear mounted radiators
As I'm sitting here there are too many things I learned about this car and it would take forever so I'm moving on...
When I first got in the car I did a once over of the interior. The fit and finish is perfect as you'd expect. There are some subtle uses of visible carbon fiber, some nicely finished aluminum trim, and a lot of leather and suede with top stitching. Not sure if I mentioned this earlier but this matte black LFA is the only LFA in the US and will be for the next 6-8 months. It also has Mark Levinson audio and navigation and while we were on the track the a/c was blasting and the windows were up. The seat controls are all brushed aluminum and one very unique is both seat belts have air bags in them.
The driver for the track day is Scott Pruett a seven time winner of the Daytona. Even with him at the wheel the first lap I was nervous. I told him I drive 1700hp race cars and have never been nervous until right before we took off. I'm much happier in the drivers seat than riding but for this I sucked it up and jumped in
I didn't get to drive the car for obvious reasons but I got to do a bunch of laps around the oval and infield road course with Scott. I was the first to go in the car so we did a short cruise around the track and the car could easily be a daily driver. Shifting was smooth in the setting we first had it in, the ride was smooth (the surface was smooth of course), and the a/c was blasting. The car is also very quiet at idle and you don't realize how good it really sounds until you starting going through the revs. When he first matted the car we were at a low RPM and it was pretty torquey and it accelerated pretty well. Was it fast? Sure. Was it fast to me? No. Would it be fast to a normal person who doesn't have a 1500rwhp Supra? Most definitely. We started on the oval and we were doing about 130-135ish on the banked portion pulling over 2g's which was awesome. On the front straight we got to around 175mph. The infield has some good hard braking spots, a few slow corners and a few high speed ones as well. Putting in words how it felt being in the car is difficult but my best analogy is it felt like a 2500lbs awd car on slicks
The car weighs 3200lbs. The way it handled the high speed corners was insane. The car NEVER got unsettled and I never ever got the sense the car was going to lose grip. When you're in high speed corners or even low speed more often than not you can feel a car "push" and you end up fighting the car. This car as he described it is ultra balanced and driving it is less about fighting with the car around the track and more of driving with the car. Every time I thought we'd get lose and slide the car just held tight and didn't miss a beat. Virtually zero body roll and the brakes were neck snapping as you'd expect. Obviously my experience is with one of the best drivers in the world so it was all very controlled yet he was driving VERY hard. There's not much I can say about the performance around the track other than it was phenomenal. It did everything exceptionally well and it could be daily driven with ease if you wanted to. Very few cars impress me and I've seen just about everything, been in quite a few cars over the years, and this one I can honestly say trumps them all. I have a lot of experience with F1 style trannies like the LFA has and I've driven many miles with them (Ferrari 430) and the rev matching, shifting, and drivability of the LFA was unparalleled. Is it worth $400k? In my opinion yes. The technology and performance of this car is pretty unbeatable in stock form and there will only be 150 of them EVER to hit the US of 500 total to ever be produced. 75 will be delivered in 2011 and 75 in 2012. They will all be a lease purchase, something like $300k down, $100k residual and Toyota holds the title until the term is over. No milage stipulations. Am I trying to get one? Yes. Can I afford it? No. But I'll figure something out.
I just got back home but I wanted to get this up. I have a few pics and a video as well. I probably missed a few things, could have written a lot more but this is all I've got for now!
VIDEO:
[swf]http://www.youtube.com/v/TKGkelWSjo0&hl=en_US&fs=1&[/swf]
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