Petrol Lexus LFA cars for sale

Let’s not beat around the bush here: the 560hp 4.8-litre V10 slotted in low behind the front axles is the star turn of Lexus’s supercar. Each one was hand-built by a single engineer. It was co-developed with Yamaha. And it could blip to its 9,000rpm red line in 0.6 seconds, so quickly that an analogue rev counter needle was not fast enough: it had to have a digital one. Even the slightly clunky single-clutch automated manual (an outdated consequence of the LFA’s painfully long gestation period) wasn’t enough to spoil the party.

Media at the time couldn’t quite understand the point of the LFA. It wasn’t quite as fast as a Ferrari 599, which was around the same sort of money when both cars were new. For a car from a brand better known for luxury saloons and hybrid SUVs, it seemed an odd move.

Yet the LFA is all the more wonderful for its sheer silliness. For example, during the car’s development, it was realised that a carbon fibre monocoque and body panels would be lighter and stiffer than the planned aluminium… so Lexus created its own proprietary carbon fibre production techniques. Solely for the LFA. Mad, but brilliantly so. That brilliance has since been recognised, and it is now among a handful of legitimate modern supercar unicorns.