LFA: How Toyota Made a Supercar Unlike Anything Else

The world is mundane, satisfying, passable. Good enough every day looks more like the last. Until suddenly everything changes due to an impact. That sends ripples through the dark waters of the auto industry, a tear in the fabric that changes the course of history. Toyota's 2000GT was the result of a bold attempt to make a name for itself, spending vast resources and gathering the knowledge and steady hands of a master craftsman. It was an effort that shouted into the wind, a momentous noise that said Toyota and Japan as a whole are capable of creating art in motion at the dawn of the new millennium.

Toyota tried to make that noise once again, to move away from the boring and mundane and go further, faster and be much, much louder in dark rooms and quiet factories. A project was born. Their mission was to create something that would prove that Toyota was still on top. That they had not forgotten their roots and that Japan could not be fooled. With the help of some brave souls, sharp minds and a prodigal son, a long dormant and humble brand created an absolute work of art, one that left the world wondering why? Why did Toyota spend a decade and an untold fortune pursuing the impossible?

Why did a man give his life to push the limits of automobile performance? And most importantly, why didn't anyone buy it? Toyota's efforts resulted in Japan's largest

supercar

- the Lexus LFA rarity has value. Limited edition

supercar

s like the Lexus LFA are proof of this. Paris Hilton's infamous white LFA resold for 20% more than the sticker price. And if R.M. Sotheby's is an indication that it was a bargain. And it's not just about classic cars, investing in physical assets has become the new way to store wealth. Even JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are paying attention to this new opportunity.

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From sushi to textiles to cameras, it's the spirit that drives Japanese workers to perfection. Kaizen is the Japanese cycle of continuous improvement. And few companies embody this philosophy as well as Toyota. Every person at Toyota, from the guy who installs the steering wheel, to the executive on the marketing team, and even the CEO, everyone has a singular mission. If it can be improved, if it can be done better, if something can be improved, you mention it and fix it. Toyota's singular devotion to the engineering of its automobiles is almost cult-like. Every hand that touches a car is there to make it a little better each time.

And every Toyota employee has a voice in this regard. The result is a company that has created some of the most fantastic, often boring, but certainly best-

made

cars in the world. The Corolla. The Land Cruiser, the Supra. Each of them is a distillation of decades of incremental advances. A unified effort of thousands of hands, each taking years to perfect. But what if you want to move a little faster? Well, to do this you're going to have to go to a bar and have a few drinks. We can think of alcohol for many things in our lives.

NASCAR was invented thanks to Prohibition. Southwest Airlines was dreamed up over drinks. Ernest Hemingway's blood was basically a dry martini, and the origins of the LFA are also a bit of the devil's drink. In the late 1990s, in a noisy bar in Hokkaido, Japan, two quiet gentlemen sat across from each other. First, Haruhiko Tanahashi, one of Toyota's top engineers, responsible for the Mark II, Crown and Celica. In front of him was his boss, Tetsuo Hattori, a quiet, studious man and Toyota's top vehicle engineer at the time. The air was tense at first, but after a few rounds of Sake, Tanahashi begins to open up and tell his boss about a dream.

His dream is to build the ultimate sports car, something that can stand the test of time. A machine to make Japan proud. Overall, it was a sloppy, drunken exchange between co-workers late at night. Tanahashi hoped that was the end. A check would arrive. Tanahashi would return home, lie down in bed, and go back to living his normal life the next day. But that night the arc of destiny bent slightly. Instead, Hattori ordered more beer for the table and said, Why not? Do it. So there, in a crowded izakaya, smoke and unease linger in the air. The Lexus LFA is planned in a few napkins and the future of Toyota changes forever.

It's a quiet morning in Hokkaido, Japan. A month has passed since that fateful meeting. Tanahashi is eager to get going as soon as possible to prevent senior management from getting cold feet. There it was, then, at the Shibetsu Proving Grounds, a secret facility built by Toyota at the genesis of the Lexus Project. It is a huge five-circuit facility hidden in a quiet corner of Japan. Tanahashi is now the head of an undercover company at Toyota. Few know it as Project P280. His original mission was to build a mid-range open-top sports car with a V6 engine, something to replace the outgoing Supra and take on Honda's new S2000.

So that morning at the proving ground, Tanahashi and his team were getting hands-on experience with the NSX and 300ZX, trying to figure out what

made

them tick and how to do it better. But at some point during the day they are in Hokkaido. Tanahashi receives a new directive while he talks to his boss about the possibility of a balanced convertible sports car. His boss wrinkles her face, rubs her chin, and pontificates. Sports cars for babies are bad. Make a sports car for adults. Simple words that essentially tell Tanahashi to dream big. Make something that would not only look good in a showroom, but would spend its years in a museum.

This wouldn't just be a competitor to the Mustang, a chunky miata with a Lexus badge. It had to be a sports car for adults. Now, what did adult mean? For starters, this would no longer be another V6 sports car. This new project would be equipped with a ten-cylinder engine capable of competing with any supercar inspired by Formula One. Those ten cylinders would be necessary to propel this sports car to more than 200 miles per hour. Those aren't exactly the kind of numbers one would expect from Toyota. This new project would have an almost unlimited budget and would be a shining star to elevate the Lexus brand to meteoric heights.

A few months later, Tanahashi and his team returned to the test track, this time not with an NSX or a 300ZX, but with a McLaren F1. The experience of analyzing and driving automotive perfection with Gordon Murray's F1 left the team inspired, inspired, but terrified. Tanahashi knew that he needed to improve his game. Toyota had made some fantastic machines, but nothing like an F1 or an F 40, and he knew it was no Gordon Murray or Enzo Ferrari. So to build a world-class car, one that could go toe-to-toe with the best, you would need a world-class team. Fortunately, he knew a person in the halls of Toyota's long and storied history.

One name etched in stone is that of Hiromu Naruse, a prominent Japanese racing driver who began driving Toyota's shining star. The 2000GT. Naruse had spent his life testing and tuning Toyota's most famous cars. If he has ever driven a golden-era Toyota, he will have benefited from master driver Naruse's detailed notes. And it was this work with Toyota that brought them together in the first place. When Tanahashi was designing the Mark II, one of Toyota's best driver's cars, Naruse was behind the wheel telling him how to improve it. Naruse had gotten his hands on almost every major automobile Toyota had ever made and probably every object they had ever hoped to compete with.

So when Naruse heard the news that Toyota was set to build a new 2000 GT, he jumped at the opportunity. Together, he and Tanahashi dedicated themselves to what every great automotive designer does. Writing a manifesto. The Gospel of the LFA was made up of 500 key points. suspension telemetry, engine power-to-weight ratio to the shape of the steering wheel. This core philosophy covered everything. No details were left out. The problem was that what was written on those pages didn't look like a Toyota. It sounded like a McLaren F1. And Toyota did not manufacture the McLaren F1. They were going to need help.

At this stage, the LFA project was little more than the aspirations of a group of dreamers. A team had gathered at a facility in Motomachi, a building now known as LFA Works. 170 people quickly began working on a prototype, and those engineers' dreams faced constant crushing. The costs of this project had already been astronomical. And back at headquarters, a team of accountants wanted to see them fail. They considered this to be an expensive and unprofitable undertaking. The snotty suits overseeing Camrys budgets couldn't see why their company would spend $1,000,000,000 to build a new supercar and Japan as a whole in the year 2000.

They didn't build supercars. They barely built fast cars. Toyota itself, supra, was dead and the dream of powerful, long-nosed Toyota sports cars had died with it. The Z had not yet been revived and the outgoing generation Z 32 was largely scrapped. Mazda's r X7 was breathing its last strong, smoky breath about to be replaced by a mediocre RX8. Honda's NSX was long overdue for an update. Its original success was marred by a decade of minor changes. The real last stand was the R 34 GT-R, a technological powerhouse of a machine with twin turbos and all-wheel drive. But to the dismay of everyone under 20 watching this video right now, even with its video game-inspired powers, the GT-R couldn't hold its own against the Italians in terms of prestige, speed or style.

Thus, at the dawn of the new millennium there was a void in the form of a Japanese supercar. Now, the last company you would think would cover it is Toyota. Toyota's lineup back in the early aughts was also a lot of fun. It's hard to make an analogy with how boring is more boring than Toyota. Either way, Toyota bureaucrats were content to keep it that way because it was profitable. Then this top secret project came up that was planned to be unprofitable from the beginning. And every year during the budget review, project 280 was on the chopping block.

I had no plans to sell cars. I had no plan to make money. And to the accountants, it really meant nothing to Toyota. Fortunately, however, they had an ally, the grandson of Toyota's original founder, Akio Toyoda. Akio at the time was a senior board member and was primarily in charge of operations in China. But just because of his name, he had strength. Naruse himself had, in fact, given Akio driving lessons years before. So when Naruse and Tanahashi needed backup. They knew Akio would bat for them. They convinced Akio of the validity of the project by inviting him to the test track.

There he would drive other supercars of the era and learn what it meant to do something truly special. The experience taught Akio not to make a car that fit within the narrow confines of Lexus or Toyota, but to make something truly unique that pushed the boundaries of what was possible for both. A real Halo car. For years, Akio would fight everyone at Toyota in defense of the LFA project. Tense meetings in which engineers, accountants and marketing directors begged and pleaded for the project to stop losing money. And Akio kept them all in line. thanks to the support of Akio Despite having no real expectations of greatness, the LFA project had a practically unlimited budget.

Now what the hell were they going to do with that? From the beginning it was decided that it would not be a car made for Toyota, butfor Lexus, an unknown brand in the Japanese market. Toyota saw this could be a breakthrough in selling its luxury line under a new name at home. So for years, the Tanahashi team worked hard on the LFA project and each year it got a little better. Still using the McLaren F1 as a reference point, the concept of a carbon fiber chassis emerged quite early. But Tanahashi initially avoided the idea. In the early 2000s, it was still a scarce material and Toyota had no experience working with it.

Believing that he could achieve performance goals using only aluminum production in an aluminum prototype, he forged ahead. Even in aluminum, the LFA prototypes represented a huge technological advance for Toyota. Toyota engineers had to create everything from scratch, each part tailored to this car. No parts have been spared here. And in 2004, they were testing in the ring. Akio himself insisted that he would be the first to drive each and every prototype. This had become his pet project and he knew what he liked and what he didn't like. And what Akio liked was a high-revving engine. Initially, V8s were considered for the LFA.

Toyota had a long history of fantastic eight-cylinder engines, but Toyota's influence for the LFA was Formula One. A world of balanced, furious, high-revving ten-cylinder engines. And so Toyota's LFA, which would be affected, no compromise should be made with an engine of this type. The 1LR-GUE developed by Toyota was less of an engineering marvel and more of a work of art. It screamed with the fury of over 550 horsepower from its 4.8-liter, meaning it would outperform even the McLaren F1 S70/2 in the horsepower-per-liter metric. The 1LR was one of the most powerful naturally aspirated engines ever created. It was as small as a V8 and weighed only the same as a V6.

It had dry-sump lubrication, titanium connecting rods, lightened pistons, exotic materials throughout, and possibly the tightest tolerances of any engine made before or since. So it was reliable. It was revolutionary. It was perfection. The most famous thing, however, was not how powerful or fast it was, but how it sounded. Cementing the LFA as the true successor to the old Toyota's 2000 GT, Yamaha was approached to take the 1LR and turn it up to 11. A partnership dating back decades, now revived to once again paint a sonic masterpiece. Yamaha's entire job was to ensure that the engine sounded and that the driver heard it.

This was a true partnership with nothing forbidden. While the 1LR rose from idle to redline in just 6/10 of a second. Its growls and vibrations resonated through a surge tank on top of the engine. The tank itself was inspired by wind and string instruments, a chamber where sound mixed and deepened the engines, with individual throttle bodies pumping and howling beneath, echoing a sound like nothing anyone had heard before. But Yamaha's hands were not limited only to the engine compartment. They influenced the very design of the car itself. To truly hear the chorus of the engine. Yamaha had Toyota design specifically made chambers between the engine and driver, effectively creating tenfold-powered surround sound.

Engine tones were transmitted through multiple openings throughout the cabin. Each of them was specifically tuned to add richness to the experience of accelerating the 1LR and connect the driver more clearly with how the car responded to their inputs. In fact, the 1LR screamed so violently and so fast that it set a record. It would become the fastest-revving production engine in the world – so fast, in fact, that its specially designed digital dashboard had to be designed so the driver could keep track of everything. That 9000 RPM redline came very quickly. The analog gauges could no longer keep up.

Now, with its chassis spruced up and its engine nestled between the front arches at the 2005 Detroit Auto Show, a production prototype of the new LFA was unveiled to the public, and the reception would be about as loud and beautiful as

anything

from Yamaha. could create. there in Detroit. Spectators at the Lexus booth gasped. This was unlike

anything

they had seen from the brand, or from anyone in Japan. This was a supercar. To the public, Toyota said it was just a design study, but the press and public soon dismissed that idea. Demand skyrocketed. This was not another Camry.

Hell, it wasn't even a supra. It was an exotic car made entirely of aluminum and sporting an engine developed for Formula One. The first prototype, also known as LF-A, was presented to the public at the Detroit Auto Show. Now, why was it called LF-A? Well, that's actually procrastination. There are many theories about the name LFA. And if you want to listen, Lexus' marketing team will tell you all kinds of silly reasons. But Tanahashi himself admitted that the name came from a lack of inspiration. The LF of LFA was simply the two-letter designation of all Lexus concept vehicles similar to the LS, ES or RC.

And in a last minute moment, Tanahashi struggled to find a suitable name for the car and simply settled on one that was the first thing that came to mind. And that's why the prototype was called LF-A. And in 2009, the dashboard was removed from the production car. And there it was. It had a name. It had a motor. And he had an audience. All in 2005. But the public wouldn't get their hands on one until six years later. The delay would be both the reason the LFA became a legend and why it became a failure. Lexus could have wrapped up prototyping and released the LFA to the world shortly after the reveal in Detroit.

But that would have betrayed the Kaizen spirit. That indomitable mantra that says: When you see a way to improve something, do it. You see, the 2005 LFA prototype was made of aluminum, but it was out of fear. Tanahashi had driven carbon fiber supercars that inspired machines like Nicola Materazzi's Bugatti EB 110, Horatio Pagani's Zonda and, of course, Gordon Murray's F1. And the writing was on the wall. Carbon fiber was what fast cars were made of. Tanahashi, however, was afraid that he wouldn't know how to use it; he wouldn't want to spend the money over time to make it happen.

But then Toyota R&D chief Kazuo Okamoto would put an end to that. He patted Tanahashi on the shoulder, looked him in the eyes and said, Get over it. Opt for carbon fiber. That suggestion was enough to convince Tanahashi to delay production of the LFA for years in pursuit of turning it into a true next-generation supercar. Now this was not an easy task. Toyota refused to subcontract anything to the LFA, so the Motomachi plant would need its own autoclave. His staff would need to learn how to make carbon fiber, and at a high enough level for his brand's billion-dollar supercar project.

Experts suggested that it took Toyota ten years to develop an in-house carbon fiber process, but Tanahashi did it in just one year. The process would not only change the way Toyota would build cars in the future, but it would forever change the way carbon fiber was made and used in the industry. This decision to use carbon fiber would add three years to the development of the LFA, but in retrospect it may have been the best decision Tanahashi ever made. The LFA has been riding the dangerous curves and hills of Germany's best circuits since 2004. It was thanks to Naruse that the LFA emerged on the painted asphalt of the Nurburgring.

He believed that all great sports cars separated themselves from the merely good by conquering those 170 curves. And he believed there was no better research team than a racing team. So he started one in 2007. Naruse opened gazoo racing. Yes, that gazoo race. Every big decision at Toyota would have involved Naruse in some way in gazoo or GR had a purpose: to participate in the grueling 24-hour Nurburgring race with specially prepared LFA prototypes. The hope was that the competition would teach them everything they needed to fix the car before it went into full production. Under Naruse's direction, the team put together a pair of nearly complete LFAs and fielded a diverse team of drivers to take part in the race.

Among those drivers was a name that no one expected. Akio Toyoda himself. Akio was very committed to this project. that he himself had to be one of the pairs of hands that took the LFA to the limit. But he had to do it secretly. And so, in 2009, among those registered on the list, their drivers for the team there was a name that no one knew. Master driver Maurizio Kinoshita uses a pompous name to hide his true identity. Akio Toyoda, wearing a wig, let Toyota board members know that their leader was driving an untested car in a potentially deadly race.

They would have torn it to pieces. Now, fortunately, Maurizio, I mean, Akio survived the race. The GR team didn't win, but that was never really their intention. They were there to learn a cycle of testing and improvement that had taken years and finally came to an end. It's hard to imagine a project taking as long as the LFA did, but every time the LFA was almost ready, the Kaizen spirit prevented it. Someone would find something to improve and the V 10 would be revised several times. They had to develop a digital dashboard. The Yamaha Association. Aluminum gives way to carbon fiber.

And then, of course, the races. Incremental change for the better. A continuous cycle that, if left unchecked, would mean development could be left in limbo forever. Fortunately for the world, there was a time limit of sorts. Akio defended the development of Yellowface, but as the years went by, it became increasingly difficult to justify. Finally, they were told to finish it and in 2009, finally, after nine years, it was time to show the LFA production to the world. At the Tokyo Motor Show, Akio Toyoda personally raised the curtain on his new supercar. The result surprised the entire world.

The history of the automobile had changed. Lexus had made the ultimate road car long before him. Well. Yes, I'm lying. Look, I mean the result of nine years of incremental improvements shocked the world. But it was not like that. Yes, the LFA was fast. Yes, the LFA was beautiful, but there was a problem. Two years earlier, Nissan had launched the R 35 GT-R, a brutally fast car, packed with space-age technology and downright affordable. It was a true revolution and with it the world was convinced that Japan could build a fast car. Therefore, a Lexus being fast would not be a surprise.

And while it was a monumental task to get carbon fiber manufactured in a Toyota facility that was no longer rare or unique, even Lamborghini had all-carbon fiber supercars. Its appearance was cutting-edge when it was revealed in 2005, but the modern world of sports cars was advancing at a breakneck pace. And in 2010, the ALF was almost underrated. Now, that doesn't mean it was any less brilliant. Each LFA was a handcrafted masterpiece. Each came with a tome of build sheets and certificates, and in every way was a perfect product worthy of being a true halo car. The Tanahashi team's efforts were visionary.

Together, they had created a truly spectacular car with built-in aerodynamics so advanced that even the mirrors would help the car stay planed on the ground. Competition components such as brakes and subframe, a fusion of carbon fiber and aluminum, light and rigid, fast and balanced. A car capable of exceeding 200 miles per hour and arriving quickly. The ultra-modern high-revving V10 that delivered power consistently. The LFA was and is one of the best driving cars on the road. A modern masterpiece that, once again, had only a lukewarm reception. The problem was that they simply took too long to make it.

And when it was in the hands of the public, the things that made it revolutionary, like the digital dashboard and aerodynamics, were commonplace. Which would be fine if it were a McLaren or a Ferrari. A very competent supercar that does everything right is still a phenomenal car. But this was a Lexus. A $300,000 Toyota. No. One, and I mean, no one was willing to pay a third of $1,000,000 for a Toyota, even if they wanted to. Lexus had a strange lease-to-own system that made it difficult to purchase one. The result was a car that only a handful of nerds with money to spend, but ignored by average supercar buyers. because of the Lexus badge. and the Japanese bought a GT-R for a third of the price.

The average person sees a nice car, doesn't know anything about what it takes to build it, and says, Hey, that's a nice Lexus. Despite being exclusive, limited and completely unique, Lexus was initially unable to sell the 500 LFA as they had built it. However, Akio Tanahashi and Hiromu were proud of what they had done, andsales failures do not. They did not stop competing with the LFA. They didn't stop trying to improve it. Since that race in 2009, the Lexus LFA has never left the Nürburgring. There his spirit was born and there his soul, unfortunately, would die. In Japan, the LFA was struggling to sell, but in racing form it was doing exactly what it was supposed to do, proving that Lexus could build a fast car, each lap faster than the last.

And in the expert hands of Naruse. Under Kaizen's leadership, the LFA continued to improve. It almost stopped being a Japanese car. His birthplace was truly the Nurburgring. The LFA was the result of many hands. But at the center of it all were Hiromu Naruse's withered palms gripping the LFA's controls tightly. He brought the legend to life, as he had done so many times before. Naruse had taken something from Toyota, a soulless, bland, engineering-focused company, and given it color, given it heart, given it soul, almost 70 years old. His passion for pushing cars to the limit never waned.

His entire being was driven by a singular purpose: to drive fast and to find ways to drive faster. It was with his hands that he gave the world its greatest gift. The LFA. It was with his indomitable spirit that he would improve it and give us the LFA edition of the Nurburgring. But sadly, it would be his parting gift on a fateful afternoon in June 2010. Naruse was driving one of the first LFA Nurburgring edition prototypes near the German racing circuit and his car veered into oncoming traffic. Wrong Way. The resulting accident would take his life and close one of the most important and renowned chapters in Toyota history.

The story of a man who quietly and humbly made everything better the following year, despite the loss or perhaps in honor of the sacrifice, Lexus released Naruse's swan song. The LFA Nurburgring edition, the pinnacle of Japanese engineering and the car that would change Lexus forever. It would cement Haruhiko Tanahashi in history among his contemporaries like Gordon Murray and Enzo Ferrari. As if guided by the spirit of Naruse himself, Japanese racing driver Akira Iida drove a Nurburgring Edition LFA through the green hell's twisty, undulating curves and achieved the fastest lap by a production car. Naruse's sacrifice, Tanahashi's vision and Akio's drive were revealed during those 7 minutes and 14 seconds.

A Japanese legacy etched in the hills of Germany forever. It took a full day to produce a single LFA. Thousands of Corollas could be made at the same time. And in 2012. One last day passed. The last LFA rolled off its assembly line in Aichi, Japan, one full day. A commitment by Toyota to give each and every one of its 550 LFA its time to develop. Of course, because perfection should not be rushed. This was a commitment that began 12 years earlier. The result was a masterpiece without rules, like anything Italy or Germany could ever create. A Japanese McLaren F1 without concessions, pure in its intention and direct in its delivery.

The LFA was brilliant, a creation that transcended Toyota itself and gave the entire country of Japan something to be proud of. Today it has been more than a decade since the 550th car left the plant. And looking back, we can see how wrong we all were about the LFA. You may have had difficulty selling, but selling was never your purpose. Its purpose was to innovate and inspire, to push a slow and suffocating corporation to dare to dream again. Like the 2000 GT had done all those years ago, the LFA was a monumental task that took the hearts and minds of hundreds of people.

The constant work of ten years of continuous improvement. And what will probably be more than a billion dollars and, ultimately, the life of a great man. Everything to fulfill the dreams of a couple of engineers sharing drinks and dreaming. Create the ultimate sports car. Sometimes, like the little humans we are in this pale blue dot, we forget that numbers rarely tell the whole story. Greatness cannot be summed up in sales figures, RPMs or lap times. To truly know greatness, you have to see it. You have to feel it. And you have to hear it. You look nice today.

Thanks for watching.