Lexus LFA - Jay Leno's Garage

welcome to the episode of Jay Leno's Garage featuring this week one of the best supercars in the world, without a doubt the best supercar ever to come out of Japan. We're lucky this was brought to us by our hungover friend Patrick in the Road & Track magazine he hosted. around the neighborhood and I said, hello, come and we'll film Patrick, come, how are you? I met the executive editor, that's right, the executive editor of Rodent Track magazine and of course this, like I said, is the LFA, so why? Now you have it, tell us how you can drive it well.

It's a special car, as you mentioned earlier, it's a Toyota supercar and they've been developing this car for a while and they had an opportunist. Well, maybe Jay would like to see it. Yes, he brought it. This is one of those cars that you've probably heard a lot about and we'll look at it in as much detail as we can. The history of the Japanese automobile dates back mostly 50 years and goes back further. than that, but in terms of heritage, probably the first great Japanese car I can think of was a Toyota GT when I was a kid.

I saw it in the James Bond movie, but I thought it was a very sexy car if Yamaha had it, yeah. It had 150 horsepower, then of course the 240z, but the 240z was never really exotic because they built a lot of them and they were meant to compete with the triumph and the mg and all that. The Toyota GT was quite exclusive. I don't know how many they built, you know, I don't know, but that was definitely the inspiration in trying to draw the heritage line back in history to make a sports car for the brand and of course the Mazda Cosmo as well, but in It was never really a supercar. and of course the Honda NSX, which is also another great Japanese supercar, but this one is very, very exclusive; the only one that builds 500 of these worldwide, yes, 500 worldwide, and you probably won't see more than 150 of them, yes, it's supposed to be 170. allocated for the US market and it's very Japanese and with this I mean the style, you know, it's funny if you go back to the '60s and '70s, the Japanese copied a lot from the Italians and the Americans, like if you look at the Cosmo compound. part looks like a Thunderbird part looks like an Alfa Romeo it has a little bit of everything while this is a pure Japanese and what I like about this is that every piece of this car looks a lot like these Bugattis behind me, custom made With this I mean they are made specifically for this car, this was not a car that used someone else's transmission, someone else's transmission breaks someone else's engine, it was all done by Toyota as an engineering exercise, essentially not to make money because even then I think these are priced at $375,000 art now at that price they're not making any money off this car that's how much engineering when applied to it is what a 4.8 liter b10 v10 is so tell us a little more about the car so it's like you said it's a blank sheet of paper from scratch so it's unusual for any car design to get the chance so it's basically made of carbon fiber the tub is carbon fiber carbon, all this ApS, a pillar is yes, aluminum subframe, so the engines are in the front half engine they call it v10 like you said 4.8 liters about 560 horsepower 350 pound-feet of torque single clutch transmission six speed paddle transmission goes from 0 to 60 in about 3.8 seconds top speed 202 miles per hour is the engine I think it's one of the best features of the car because it sounds like a Formula One engine, actually to take advantage of the heritage from AMA, it is tuned and aided by the haunted development of Alma and is one of the best sounding engines of all time and you will find out in a moment, obviously Yamaha makes instruments with acoustic equipment and all that, sound is very important for them, so to get the right sound, this is a pillar, as you said, is the carbon fiber.

In fact, I think it's one of only two circular looms in the world that could make the carbon fiber for this part you know, I've seen this car get a lot of criticism, people say it's not as fast as the zr1 oh, It's not as fast as it is, it's not, but when you have to look at the whole package, it is. It's so sophisticated the center of gravity is so low and it's a driver's car, it's not a race car, it's meant to be an extremely high performance road car and hopefully we'll find out in a minute or two when we drive it to go for a spin and this is extremely light for a road car.

I think it's 3200 pounds, a hundred pounds and probably with fluids as well, 20 inch tires, those 20 20 inch carbon ceramic brakes, yeah, so many of you know the details of the card and the technical and writing features. about this car that the connecting rods are titanium right which is another interesting thing about this car many of you know little things that really make this car in a class of its own yeah the engine is really if you like to open the back part. Look and look inside. You'll like this engine because it revs to 9000 rpm, that's the 9000 redline, which is pretty high.

You know, if you ride motorcycles like me, 9000 doesn't seem like much, but in a car engine. so many parts moving so fast it's impressive a bit of revs from zero to 9000 rpm in less than a second yeah let's say 0.9 actually point I heard point six that's what I heard so I don't know maybe it's Well, the factory tells us yes. Yeah, and I think that's one of the reasons why they say the tachometer has to be digital, because if you have a normal physical part you wouldn't be able to hold a needle right, you know what's interesting about five years ago, Mr.

El Chaddha himself brought the ankle-deep prototype to our

garage

here and I was very impressed. I mean, it was cool to see, so it's not that different from the production vehicle. Let's see what else we have here. Well, we go back and you'll see the. extractors for the heat and three exhaust pipes three exhaust pipes down here that's cool, very good design and you know one of the things that Yamaha will look at was an exhaust. No, there's some sort of resonator inside and it controls a flap that controls one of the lower revs and when it's higher, it opens it up to give you more exhaust flow and engine to breathe.

You know, people say why they build the car they're not going to make money on. They make a ton. of money on Corollas and all the other things, but you know you have to have something that excites the engineers and excites the business, like for me, Nissan didn't have anything that really interested me, but then they came out with the GTR and suddenly I'm interested in the Nissan product line because of the way they develop that car, maybe their technology leaks out and when you give the engineer something exciting to work on like this, it filters down to the dregs of the consumer to entice us to learn about the La passion our Tia represents, I know it's going to interest Lamar this year.

Oh, a hybrid. I like to go against Audi, you know, which is a pretty bold statement because the last Tiger that really had any sort of sporting pretensions would have been the turbo Supra. problem from '99 to about '99, I mean a small sports car, the MR2 in all its aspects, the MR2 was a great car, there was also another great car. I mean, to me, if you have an MR2, look at this like, who are you aiming for? For you, it's fascinating because sometimes European manufacturers mess with Japanese ones. There is no soul in the car.

There is not enough. You know this kind of stuff. That kind of nonsense. I also mean Japanese engineers and Japanese car enthusiasts. The ones I met were as passionate as anyone in the world, so this car is a classic example of that. Let's take a look inside. Now what I just said is that it's a go to the door handle right here Alcantara is that, yes, yes, and leather, leather, lots of carbon fiber trim details. I'm a steering wheel, that's it, you know the engine amenities, you know, model shifters, we still call it Toyota, but it's Alexis Alexis. it's Alexis, you know, and of course, being Alexis, it's got that Lexus quality of yours, you just take it for granted that everything works, you know your air conditioning is on your sound system and a beautiful steering wheel, yeah, and you've got all these details, you know it's like the formula. lifestyle right right engine start button these are cool too, it's kind of a beefy release shifter, it's one that has one side up, one side down, yeah, down and up, yeah, and it interesting thing about this instrument gauge is that there's almost a when you press it, move the tachometer model to the side so you can see the settings on the left side oh, it's pretty cool, yeah, it's kind of cool, well, let's open the hood, let's see what this engine looks like, oh, I see. and look at the carbon fiber, look at how light it is, it's still a stick but it's a carbon fiber stick, yes, it's incredible how light all of this is, it's an air inlet, obviously you can tell that it's very far back and right in the middle, yes, like that.

You're actually going to see five of the cylinders here and the other five are under the dash, don't even think about working on this car, okay, just forget it, the good thing is being Alexis, you'll probably never have to touch it. I know that's the good thing about that's what Lexus is known for, you know, it's the quality of course, now it also has the soul with this thing which is the traction control, everything else, yeah, it definitely has a lot of features electronics to help you drive, yes there are some Auto Sport and wet settings, you don't want to have too much trouble in the rain and this is real carbon fiber.

Many cars have a carbon fiber look. Carbon fiber details that don't really do anything. This is actually it. carbon fiber this you see the detail yeah I mean this hood weighs nothing oh my gosh it's amazing how light it is and those tires are built specifically for this car by Bridgestone. The good thing is that they are built specifically for this car. The disadvantage. They cost about $500 each, so keep the rubber burning to a minimum. How do we also open the trunk? This would have a lot of space, a little bit and light there, according to supercar tradition, there is no space at all, really good.

There was a little bit of space, you could take maybe a suitcase or two, maybe a suitcase, some extra parent's underwear or that's it, yes, but again, very well done. I guess this is to keep people watching and stealing your rights, all that kind of stuff, but you know, this is what these cars get or don't get, and I think you'll find that it's a car that you have to drive to really appreciate, It's a bit like sitting still, people will wonder, why are you driving that? Well, it just doesn't feel like any other car and is somewhere between champagne and beer.

You know, this is a very sophisticated instrument. It's so well put together and such a tight unit that although there may be other cars that are. faster could make the Nurenberg ring faster I don't think you enjoy driving them as much as you do, that's the fun part, yeah I think one of those cars was the more you drive it, the more I appreciate these little details, yeah they come, you know how the instrument panel works, how the rowboat works, you hear the sounds, yeah, and then the engine, obviously, and all the detailed equipment level underneath, inside the car and under the hood, and I think that's really the beginning. to make you gravitate even more towards a cry, you know there has been a change in recent years in super cars that you can drive every day, the new McLaren is an example of that cost of the 911, certainly with 11 turbo, but already you know for years. whether you had the Countach and some of the Ferraris, these are cars that you would take out on a Saturday and you know there was always, especially in the '70s and '80s, some electrical or carburetion problem that made them, oh my God, well, the people can't stand it.

With that you already know that this is a car. I imagine the first oil change is one in these ten thousand miles, something like that, well, yeah, just the fact that this demonstrator has 17,000 miles on it, that's not something you've seen in the past, you know? supercars well, even most Bugatti Veyrons the average owner puts on thousands of miles a year, you may know that this is a car you can drive every day in many ways. I think the Japanese, all the nsx, change that, where it's actually a daily usable car and I think more or less.

Continue with the same theme so you can have a great performance car, you can take it to the supermarket if you want. Now tell me about the suspension. The suspension is unique in that it is designed at the front with a double eight-link. and the rear end is multi-link, but the interesting thing is that a lot of the suspension adjustments on this car are done at the Nurburgring mm-hmm like windy and super cars, so it has the ability to handle the track and the different conditions very well. surface conditions, oh, speaking of which. Aren't they building 50 special cars at the Nurburgring?

Besides this, it's actually a good point, the equipment especially for that track, that trike is obviously something special and to go fast on that track you need special settings, so that's 50 cars to leave out the equipment andthe features that would allow it to continue, that's an extra 70,000 over the standard price, yes I would be mad if I bought one and the next day the new high performance version comes out, but it only has ten more horsepower, yes, and it's Some more suspensions, but you know, these people get caught up in this whole Nurburgring thing. Driving a car on the street is where you are 99.9 percent of the time and for me, that was a great thing about the original F1 that McLaren was designed for. a road car so I just drove and droveFantastic on the road it was one of these things, it was so hard that you hit, you know, you just know you almost hurt yourself because it hits so hard that you want to have some compliance and that's what I like this, this is designed to be a road car that with some tweaks like the F1 could work, yes, yes, and I think Mr.

Toyota races this car, yes, every last two years on the Nurburgring 24 hours , so it's capable of racing applications, yes, and the nice thing is that being a Lexus, you get the whole Lexus service deal, you know they're not snobs, they embrace it. They take care of it, yeah, yeah, they take care of you, you're pretty good, let's go for a ride, here's an adjustment so you can adjust how aggressive you want the shift. I like it, very aggressive, you know, when I was a kid and working. for mercedes-benz, when the six point three came out, they used to have that transmission that just shifted like boom boom, the americans didn't like that, but i loved it because it just connects to the Authority, yeah, it connected right away, you know, so that did it. very very cool, very very comfortable car, no cramps, lots of leg room, lots of pedal room.

I like these types of wheels cut like this so you don't hit your knees, which is always a problem for me. Don't put oars. You don't move with the steering wheel, which is a bit strange, it's a different school of thought on that, definitely, yes, people like something stationary, some people, yes, I mean me, if I'm moving it , I can do it because you know you definitely see it. the difference with a dual clutch gearbox with a dual clutch gearbox you're already into your next year and just boom, although this is fast, what do we have here?

This is your navigation, it's like a visual tour, but it's cool. notches, yeah, lets you know something, yeah, actually, this is pretty new in the last two years. You know, the only thing I like about driving older cars is that this pillar is very thin, but it has good visibility, you have a good type of brake. there so you don't feel, but you can go off the track with different sporty settings, right, wait, well, in the city, it's very docile in the city, it drives like a Lexus, you can hear the engine, you can hear it, you want to unleash , so that's what we do.

We'll do it, take it into the hills a little bit and then take it out on the highway and see how it goes, but I'm not sure if the sound comes through in the video, but it sounds fantastic in the car. I mean, this is the classic case of a tuned exhaust. Yeah, I mean, the sound is literally transmitted to the interior, so you get the real sound of the engine. It's not like an electric vehicle where they make it sound like a gasoline engine. car, you know, the funny thing is that in this car 4000 on the tachometer is where 2,000 would be in a normal car, you know, in terms of using an analog type, incredibly stiff, very, very, very tight, steering wheels very well, very comfortable, car with a lot of space, that's it. the way you're not cramped at all, you know, for a long time in the '70s and '80s, in supercars, you were always leaning to one side, that was the best thing about the McLaren F1.

He sat right in the middle so you could have nine. feet high and you still have plenty of room. You know cars like this are so fast and so smooth that you actually need the sound to tell you that you're breaking the law because you have no idea that you know that sound is a big part of the entertainment of a vehicle like this because in a car like this you wouldn't even listen to the radio. Sorry, I messed up my dual-clutch gearbox because Alexis being the only gauge driving this phenomenal attack oil temperature water temperature oil pressure everything stays exactly the same no matter how hard you drive, boy, what a sophisticated car, You know again, there are other cars that are individually better, this thing does everything extremely well, I mean there are other cars that are faster and can handle better. but this as a whole is pretty incredible and it's a supercar that you can use every day, all the little details, yes, the Stringfield transmission, yes, that's the question: will it do a Burnout? and the answer is, it's not my car, it belongs to Toyota.

It costs $400,000 so I'm not going to do a Burnout but I'm going to try. I'm going to keep driving it and see how it does on the highway. Wow, I could drive it every day. Attraction control, still, open it. Yeah. You know, it's funny to me when I meet car guys who are 20 years old and they love Lamborghinis and stuff and they don't know how to drive. I love them, they're a little embarrassed, you know, because his dad never had to do it. I don't know if anyone has a stick, yeah Patrick said it right, he said it, it really is the sound of precision, you really appreciate hearing that noise and like I say there may be other cars that could go a little faster but no they are going to sound It's better to do it with the Bellissimo sound, you know, every decade or so they proclaim that the supercar is dead and due to fuel restrictions and the economy, we won't see supercars anymore and then we go through a dry spell and then inevitably what happens It's just that engineers go crazy. work and build some of the best super cars of all time, you know, when the Viper came out in the early '90s with 400 horsepower, they said that's why people pay a lot of money because they never build anything that big again. powerful, well of course that changes and We are in a new generation of super cars, super cars like this that you can drive every day and that require no more maintenance than a Corolla or any other Lexus.

It's pretty amazing, so I want to thank Alexis for lending us this extremely rare one. limited production car and also road and track, Patrick for bringing this up and I'm going to make some noise, see you next week.