The Lexus LFA Is the $400,000 Supercar Nobody Talks About

this is a 2011

lexus

lfa, it was an exotic

supercar

produced by

lexus

with only 500 units manufactured worldwide and when it was new in 2011, the base sticker price was 375 thousand 000 now a lexus

supercar

is a bit rare, so I figured the values ​​on these would drop like a stone, but today the average selling price for an LFA on autotrader is 388,000. Today we're going to find out why I borrowed this LFA from Audi Bridgewater here in New Jersey where it's owned. of the dealership owner. Today I'm going to find out what makes this so valuable. I'll start by showing you around and giving you a tour of all its interesting features and unusual quirks, and then.

I'm going to take it out on the road and find out how the LFA drives and at the end I'll give it an excellent rating for more of my thoughts on the LFA. Click the link below to go to autotrader.com. I've also compiled a list of the most unusual Lexus models currently on sale, moving on to the quirks, but first, a quick overview: The LFA was a halo car for Lexus intended to show people that the brand was taking serious about performance and serious about what was used. a 4.8-liter v10 with 553 horsepower and 354 pound-feet of torque came to a sequential automatic transmission, did 0-60 in 3.9 seconds and could reach a top speed of 202 miles per hour and Lexus only made 500 for everyone. and yes the lfa cost almost 400k dollars in 2011 and yet no one really

talks

about this car like they do ferrari lamborghini and other exotic cars. showing off all the quirks and strange features of the Lfa's interior, starting with its trunk.

You may have thought this was the Lfa's trunk back here, but it's not. It turns out that the Lfa is actually a hatchback. I had no idea that the glass opens. to release the glass there is no button on the keychain to release it, there is actually a small button inside the interior, you press it and it opens and you can open it and once you open it you will discover the most ridiculous thing. DIY cargo cover that you will ever see on a 400,000 car, it doesn't even cover all the cargo on this particular model under that cargo cover all the books and manuals, there are a lot of them and there are some gems in these Things, for starters, the sheer amount of books, documents, manuals and guides you get with this car is absolutely incredible.

This here is the lfa introduction and orientation manual. this here inside the lfa. This is the owner's manual. and here is the owner's manual for the navigation system. and it just goes on, this is only about a quarter of the stuff that's in there, my personal favorite thing though, is a laminated booklet that tells you how to wash your Ifa and there are some very specific restrictions, for example it says not to use . Automatic car washes, as they can scratch the body of the vehicle, damage the paint, and spray water where it should not be sprayed.

Actually, here are some instructions on where not to spray water specifically on the rear and front on top of the hood. It says not to point the nozzle head at the hood or radiator grills, doing so can negatively affect the engine. This brochure continues. It has three sides, front and back, on how to wash your Ifa. This will add value one day in the classic. car auctions in the future, now talking about the trunk, it's not exactly huge, this is not a car I would use on very long road trips, but it does come with that cool LFA bag that holds all the stuff and that would be the coolest. thing you can carry on a plane oh yes, I have my Ifa bag, yes, I have an Ifa, no big deal, next thing, I swear I'm talking about the inside of the car to move on to visibility and specifically this window, which is the smallest window.

I have never seen any bar on any car. I don't even know why it's a window. It is only an inch tall at its highest point. The funny thing is that half of it is taken up by all these dot numbers in the Lexus logo. It's the smallest window you'll ever see, it doesn't increase the car's visibility. The next I'm inside the car. I'm going to talk about the seat controls, which may seem strange at first glance, but they are the most intuitive seat controls I've ever seen you want the seat to go back push it back you want the seat to go forward pull it forward it's actually very simple and works great wish all cars had this too down here is the heated seat control zero one two three and there's a little button that you can press if you want to access the area behind the seats, which is quite small.

The next interesting thing about this car is the seat belts which you will notice as soon as you get in. actually throw it over your shoulder instead, the belt part is already down here, just put it over your waist and fasten the belt now. One of the other things you will notice about this seat belt is that it is a little thicker than a normal seat belt. That's because this car is one of the first to have inflatable seat belts with an airbag and I'll actually trigger a crash to keep you safer, just like an airbag in the steering wheel, moving to the center inside, one of The nice thing about the IFA is that you get this little plate that tells you what number your IFA is.

Now some exotic car companies lie about how many units of each exotic car they make to make the car seem more exclusive than it really is. I'm not going to name names because I don't want to get sued, but Ifa has his number out of the sequence of 500 right here in the middle and whenever you want to feel special, you can just check it out and take a look below. above we have to talk about turn signal stocks nothing like getting an IFA to look at it and talk about turn signal stocks but these are great they are the thinnest turn signal stocks I have seen anywhere modern car designed that way presumably so they don't get in the way with the paddle shifters, more importantly they are very high quality, they don't move or move when they're not supposed to, they're really stuck there, so they don't move unless you really want to move them, you touch these things all the time, so it gives you a real sense of quality in this car.

Now talking about the shift panels, that's another strange element on this car. First of all, they are on the steering column instead of the steering wheel. and that's how the column should be done, they don't move when you're in a corner, so you always know exactly where the shift paddle will be down and up, but that's not the weird part about these things, the weird part . This is how they work when you start the car, it's in neutral to start, you have to pull the right paddle, the positive pedal, there is no pr and d gear selector in the middle, instead you pull the right pedal and then you are first now let's say you want to put it back in neutral, pull on both pedals, that's quite common in cars like this, the unusual thing is what happens when you want to put it in reverse, look around the interior and you won't find the El Reverse button is here to the left of the steering column.

You pull it towards you only when you are in neutral and the car is in reverse. The other crazy thing is that if you're in reverse you want to go back into first gear. you can't go straight, you have to go in neutral reverse and then pull the right paddle and you go back in first and that's the strange and interesting story of the lexus lfa paddle shifts, but one of the things I like most about This car is the gauge cluster Nowadays, all exotic cars have a gauge cluster that changes color, shape and size depending on what mode it's in, but this car pioneered all of that.

The way it works in this car is cooler than most cars even today. a small button on the steering wheel and the entire tachometer scrolls to give you a few menu options. Now in most cars it's all digital, but in this it's both digital and an actual physical tachometer that scrolls and looks really cool when you put it in sport mode. mode, the tachometer completely changes from a normal one to a more sporty and aggressive one with red and white. The other interesting thing I noticed is what the LFA does when you put it in sport mode, it just skips a couple of numbers at the bottom of the tachometer.

You no longer need to know when you are at 1000 or 3000 rpm, that doesn't matter, all you have to do is focus on the top, finally, another cool thing that the gauge cluster does is that when you turn the car off, everything spins. they go off one by one until the last things disappear the tachometer needle and then the gear you're in and then everything disappears it's cool it looks like the future the other really cool thing about the gauge cluster on this car is that the red The line is variable depending on how hot the car is so when you first start it it's around 6000 rpm and you can see it just goes up little by little at this point the car is completely hot so the red line is about 9000 rpm. and it just does it over time, it's a really cool idea that very few cars do.

Another one of my favorite features of this car are these buttons in the center when you are driving and the stereo is off these buttons don't work. You say anything, they're just unlabeled buttons and you wonder what they do, then you press the power button to turn on the stereo and they all come to life, that might be a little trick, but I personally think it's a really cool party trick and I love playing with that on/off button on the stereo. The next step is the rear spoiler, now it deploys when you drive the car, it appears quite frequently at a certain speed, I don't know what, but on all these cars.

There is always a button you can use to manually raise the spoiler if you just want to drive and have everyone watching you. Where is that button on this car? Take a look around and try to find it. It won't turn out that Lexus hid that. button all the way back here behind the driver's seat, you must really want people to look at you if you want to raise the spoiler, but if you want to press the button and the spoiler goes up back, I don't know why hit it behind the driver's seat, but that's where the last fresh interior cork is on the dash surrounding the gauge cluster.

There's only so much you can put on those thin steering wheel caps, so some of the stuff you normally find on the steering. Instead, the wheel stocks are on these cool little switches around the gauge cluster, for example, on the left you'll find the headlights. You turn them on by moving the switch to the right. I already showed you where the drive mode selector is and below that. you have the gauge cluster brightness switch and below that you have the intermittent wiper timing switch, which is cool. Below we'll cover some of the car's more unusual exterior features, starting with the fuel door, you open it from the inside.

It's like a normal fuel door and it pops open, but when you look at it, you'll notice there's a place where you put the fuel and a place where you put the windshield washer fluid, which is very unusual. I would love to get one. of these out of the automatic zone and we start pouring windshield washer fluid on the fuel door and see if people run away and get scared because I'm going to destroy it. Next we move under the hood. Now the engine in this car is very beautiful and Lexus has done a good job of not covering it with too much plastic so you can really look at it and check it out.

Perhaps the most interesting thing under the hood is the fact that you pay four hundred thousand dollars for these and the hood doesn't automatically stay up, in fact there isn't even one of those built-in hood accessories that you just lift up and then it's up, you actually have to undo the hood support from the top of the hood and then put it in place yourself, it's a bit out of place on a 400k car, another exterior quirk is the wipers, now you'll notice there is a wiper giant, well it turns out there is also a small baby wiper and they are on the same wiper arm so they are However, they are both on the road, they do a good job covering the entire window and finally we have to talk about the keys.

Welcome to this car and you will notice that despite its beautiful futuristic shape covered with carbon fiber, exotic and low appearance. there's a regular old keyhole on the door, there's also a regular old keyhole on this side and on the passenger door, and you want to know why it's because this car, as advanced as it is, had regular rolled keys, Perhaps most surprising is the fact that the keyless entry system is not integrated into the key like in most normal modern cars, but rather there is a key and a separate key fob. I really didn't expect it to be the only part of this car that looks old school andspeaking of keys we have to go back inside for a second because this car has a real key and an engine start button so the way it works is you insert the real key into the ignition like a normal car and only then you can press the engine start button when you want to turn it off, just turn the key off like a normal car, which makes the engine start button kind of an unnecessary little trick, so the lfa is quite peculiar in a way cool, which isn't a surprise considering this is a first effort. supercar from lexus, which is a brand that is not really known for supercars, but the lfa drives like a 400,000 car.

It's time to find out that this is a little scary, oh my god, that sound is like a car from formula one, that's crazy, right? Listen to that, wow, that's one of the great sounds. I'm not even sorry I said anything yet. The sound is like it's taking over me. I can not believe it. I've heard them before from outside but oh my gosh that sound is amazing that's amazing the best sounding car I've ever heard in my life I've been driving this car for two minutes yes I swear this is the car with the best sound i have ever heard in my life this is the kind of car people in this area call the police even though we are going like 30 just because they hear it so i have it in normal mode which is good , actually the journey is quite difficult even in normal conditions, here we go, let's try this.

Wow, it's so quick, it's so quick, but the transmission dulls the experience a bit because it just doesn't provide that immediate upshift like a modern dual-clutch does. However, when you reach those high revs, you hear that sound. we're in a good corner here wow it holds the line very well it's very planted there's no body roll at all the steering is a little vaguer than you want a little less precise with each generation of these supercars things just get a little better and a little better uh and this being a lexus I didn't think it would have the most precise steering and that's true, the car is very planted on the ground as you would expect.

Wow, the sound, I just can't. That's just amazing, I can't believe it, especially that sound coming out of a Lexus. I look down and he likes Lex, like my dad has an rx. Ah, it doesn't sound, it doesn't sound at all. The transmission is. it's too slow, it's just uh, it's not at all, but the thing is with this car it's important to remember that when you think about it at the time 2011 12 they didn't have dual clutch to handle that much power, no one was doing that now. Dual clutches and everything you start feels like it's a little behind the steering.

Yes, it's not that precise. You can feel that the front end is a little lighter than on some modern cars and the steering is a little lighter. It's not lazy by any means, but in a hurricane you spin it and this car is not like that, it's just that it's insanely fast, but the thing is the speed is almost the second floor of this car by the sound, I just can't believe as. It seems like we're on a street now, the thing is if we're going 37 miles per hour and you still hear a little bit of that sound and you think I should do more than this guy on the trip.

It's tough on bad roads, I'm even having comfort mode right now and the ride is light. This is not the Lexus you get into if you just want to go to the store. There are many other Lexuses for that Ferrari. It's a Ferrari. and that they're always going to be great, but there's something a little more unique about this car, the question then becomes 400,000, I mean, it's a huge amount of money, but you know, what happens with cars like this It's just that it's not like someone said oh I should. I buy a Camry or this one, they usually have 20 cars and they say, yeah, I'll add that, and for people like that, yeah, it's probably worth 400,000, it's another name in the collection and there's only 500 of these in the whole collection. world, you know, if I saw this car, I would turn around like I had a recipe, this guy has no idea, right?

I want and that's the Lexus LFA, it's surprisingly fast and fun to drive and most importantly it has the best exhaust note of any car I've ever driven. It's hard to say any car is worth 400,000, but this car certainly has some features. of some of the best cars I've ever reviewed and yet no one

talks

about them in the same sense as ferrari or lamborghini, they probably should and now on to Doug's score, starting with the weekend category, specifically the LFA design is a bold car. It's an aggressive car but it's not a beautiful car. I never hated how it looked like some people do, but I never loved it.

Still, it deserves an acceleration of six. The LFA does 0-60 in 3.9 seconds, giving it an 8. Handling is good, but not among the best due to its slightly vague steering gets another eight the cool factor is indisputable may not be up to par with the ferrari but it's not too far away and gets a rare nine for importance whether you put the lfa in a museum it's definitely up there although not at the top of the importance pyramid so it gets an eight which does that the total score for the weekend is 39 out of 50, easily beating the only other car that has received a score from Doug.

My Range Rover, next is the diary. categories starting with features the lfa has some interesting things but it lacks the latest technology of more modern cars and the key is a disappointment you get six measures of luxury how soft and comfortable the car is the lfa has very comfortable seats but surprisingly hard driving that earned it only five measures of quality and reliability in materials and the lfa has few equals, its interior quality is top notch and while it is difficult to evaluate the real reliability of the lfa, we know the reputation of lexus, there are still drawbacks occasional like that cheap exterior keyhole and high service costs gets a nine for its practicality it has about five cubic feet of storage space and so ultimately gets a value of two this is an amazing car with an amazing sound but it is hard to justify four hundred thousand dollars given its aging transmission, imperfect steering and controversial styling not to mention the l on the front instead of a prancing horse or raging bull, it gets a four, bringing its total daily score to 26. just barely below the range rover, no surprises, this car was not really designed for daily driving and that brings the total dug score to 65, far superior to my range rover, the best car i have ever dug, but since it is only the second car that I've dug up and also the second worst, we'll get more context for that number.

In the future, as I review more cars,