Are you colorblind with nearly a half-mil burning a hole in your pocket?
Do you want Toyota’s greatest technological achievement, all wrapped up in a single package?
Behold the diarrhea brown copper 2012 Lexus LFA.
Maybe my revulsion is due to poor lighting, or maybe car dealers suck at photography, probably both. This beauty, I use that term loosely, had been available on eBay with a BuyItNow price of only $389,000. The listing has since been removed, indicating either a successful sale or hara-kiri from shame.
Is the LFA still relevant in this new era of supercars?
It’s not that old, but the Lexus LFA seems to live in a bygone era. Color agnostic, the LFA was (keyword was) a direct competitor for cars like the the Ferrari F430, Lamborghini Gallardo, and even the dated-but-capable Porsche Carrera GT. Yes, the F430 and Gallardo are significantly less expensive than the LFA, but their performance is about the same as the Lexus supercar delivers.
A new generation of supercars is now here. The Ferrari 458 Italia and even the spanking-new Lamborghini Aventador still undercut the price of the LFA. It’s looking more and more like Lexus is way behind, despite having just arrived. Maybe this is what happens when you take a decade to create a supercar. Maybe it won’t matter, and the LFA will be able to keep up in sales and performance thanks to its exclusivity.
On paper, the Aventador is the clear dollar-per-horsepower winner; especially when you consider the effectiveness of laying down all 700 horsepower with four wheels instead of two.
With only 500 LFAs being produced, Toyota might be able to get a pass on keeping up. Still, it seems that extreme sports cars are still wheeled hotcakes, even in an economic downturn. Lamborghini has found buyers for every 2011 Aventador it plans to build, for example. With the competition getting so much better, rarity may not be enough to keep interest up in a nearly $400,000 Lexus that’s likely to post inferior numbers in magazine comparison tests.
[Source: eBay Motors]
