What Lexus USA is trying to do is to prevent speculators from driving the price of the already super-expensive supercar into the stratosphere. The LFA is supposed to be the flagship of a new focus on competing with other automakers on performance and exclusivity as well as quality. Giving Lexus that shine means controlling the customer experience to the last possible degree and that means insuring we don't see the LFA up for sale on eBay.

So what Lexus USA is doing is creating a special lease arrangement in which the company will retain the LFA's title for two years before turning it over to the owner. That's not a traditional lease model involving deposits and finance arrangements, it's just being called a "lease" because "customers will arrive at a private deal with the company about how much they're going to pay and when (always totaling the identical total price), then the company will turn over the title after two years" takes up too much space.

So yes, you can still walk into an American Lexus dealer with a whale penis leather briefcase full of ill-gotten gains and walk out with an LFA, you just won't get the title in the mail for two years. That restriction only applies in the US. Well-healed European Toyota enthusiasts will be receiving their titles immediately.

Production of the 552 HP supercar commences next December, with each being built to order. Make sure you check out our review of the 2011 Lexus LFA.

Things we did not know about the Lexus LFA:

1. When accelerating at an engine speed of about 3,000 rpm, the driver hears a powerful harmonic sound structure centered around 250Hz, which is the primary component of combustion tone.

Hmm. Ok. Got that. Next?

2. At a high engine speed of about 6,000 rpm, the harmonic sound structure is centered around 500Hz. This produces a sound that is rich and smooth.

Ooh! Cool! That makes sense.

3. Sub-path: This side path is a sound conveyance duct with a primary resonance frequency of 500Hz. The dragon eye adds a feeling of richness to the somewhat rough air intake noise.

Wait, "dragon eye"? I'm confused — weren't we talking about...er...uh...wait, what?

Nevermind. Just listen to the thing by clicking the video above. Thank you, Yamaha. I have no idea what you just said, but you reached out, and you touched a brother's heart.

[Yamaha]

The strut holding up the hood? It's carbon fiber. Correct. Carbon fiber. How cool is that?

In fact, the more we look at the LFA, the more we gain a little insight into why it took Toyota so long to develop it. Some would call it overkill, but there are a limited number of ways to get someone to pay $400K for a Toyota. Anyone else think the intake looks like the Predators head?

Update: We've pulled the video at Lexus' request, look for it again in the near future.

You don't really understand how massive the shaft of the torque tube is until you see an Aisin employee's hand atop it.

What's most impressive about the piece is details like the seats, instrument panel, engine and the suspension can all be seen. According to Lexus, the sculpture is constructed from transparent acrylic boards that have been sanded and polished. All we know is it's simply epic. See how the looks-cold-as-ice acrylic LFA compares to the real thing in the live shots in our gallery below.
(Hat tip to Jack!) [Autoblog via MyModernMet]

Full Disclosure: Lexus wanted us to drive the LFA so badly they flew me to Miami and put me up in a fancy hotel. Also, they fed me cornbread with jalapenos in it. If anyone wants to bribe me, southern food is definitely the way to do it, but I'd really have preferred country ham biscuits and red eye gravy.

You've probably been bewildered by how much attention one car from a previously maligned automaker is getting on this and other enthusiast sites. But the attention we've paid pales in comparison to the attention to technical detail Toyota's displayed in the design and construction of the LFA. The car's gestation has taken nearly a decade not because the program had problems or limited resources, but because Toyota decided to design and build nearly every element of the LFA, its first ever supercar, in-house. Where most companies — Bugatti, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche included — contract out things like gearboxes and the design and construction of carbon fiber components, Lexus chose to teach itself how to make those things better than anyone else, then build its own tools in order to make them.

Take the carbon fiber, for instance. To make the LFA's, Toyota created one of only two circular looms in the entire world, then used it to simultaneously weave one tube of carbon inside another. They built this system just to make the A-pillars on the car.

This all sounded like little more than corporate grandstanding to us. It's the largest car company on earth patting itself on the back for being able to use the money it got selling the automotive equivalent of beige orthopedic shoes to build some fancy tools.

That attitude lasted all the way to turn 6 at the Homestead Speedway road course. An over enthusiastic application of the sharp throttle had the 552 HP, 4.8-liter V10 spinning rapidly towards its 9,500 RPM redline and the tail sliding out towards the grass. Normally that'd have been an oh-shit-I'm-going-to-break-a-$400K-car moment, especially in an unfamiliar supercar, but in the LFA it barely requires conscious correction as it just blended into rocketing down the following straight at three-figure speeds. In fact, oversteer in the LFA doesn't feel so much like oversteer as it does like the rear tires are sitting on castors and being pushed around by a couple of assistants. There's no body roll, no drama, just complete communication and smooth recovery. The reason for that? The impossibly anal approach Toyota took when building the LFA.

The LFA has an unprecedentedly low center of gravity of 17 3/4" — located directly beneath the steering wheel's rim. So far a conventional attribute executed perfectly, but how that CoG got there is way more complicated. First, the engine is located way back in the engine bay and mounts to a 6-speed rear-mounted transaxle through a carbon torque tube. The oil coolers are in the front fenders, while the radiators are at the rear to aid weight distribution, they're fed by the shoulder scoops. That creates a 48% front, 52% rear distribution for the 3263 Lb curb weight. That accounts for the CoG's position front-to-rear, but not vertically. That was achieved by using a world's first counter gear to raise the relative height of the torque tube, allowing the engine to be mounted incredibly low in the car, accounting for the CoG's height.

Of course, that's still only part of the story. The rigid drivetrain assembly (engine, torque tube, transaxle) is connected to the car by four mounts positioned at the geometric extremes of the unit. With no twist in the assembly due to torque, this arrangement eliminates the effect of power delivery on the chassis, there's no torque reaction.

You see where this is going?

Of course, the reason I was over aggressive with the throttle is that the engine revs extraordinarily quickly. From idle, it can be bouncing off the 9,500 RPM fuel cut off in just 6/10ths of a second. That's thanks to an incredibly low reciprocating mass, but achieving that wasn't simple either. They used technology developed by Toyota's F1 program to develop the block, for example, which was cast in the same foundry, using the same technique as the F1 engine. The same goes for the gearbox. The paddle-shifted hydraulically actuated 6-speed features a traditional H-pattern over the more popular dual clutch design because it was determined that the two clutch plates of the latter would negatively impact that low reciprocating mass. Shift speeds are adjustable, taking just 2/10ths of a second a their fastest, but can be slowed to "smooth" for everyday driving; at their fastest, they're anything but.

Transitioning off the incredibly powerful brakes — 15 1/3" diameter carbon metallic discs at the front with Brembo Monoblock 6-piston calipers — and onto the super sensitive throttle isn't currently as smooth as easily driving on the edge of grip requires. But these LFAs are pre-production prototypes and will be continually refined before production begins December 2010. Lexus plans to "break the molds" after just 500 LFAs and plans to build each car for a customer's own bespoke requirements. The company half-jokingly estimates that there's "30 billion" potential combinations of spec.

With only a 202 MPH top speed, a 3.7-second 0-60 MPH time and a 7:30 ‘Ring time, the LFA isn't going to be a bench racer's dream. But we actually admire Toyota for eschewing the conventional, numbers-based approach to supercar success. The LFA's 500 lucky customers aren't buying bragging rights, they're buying the most comprehensively complete supercar package ever made. As a statement of technological ability and performance intent, the LFA firmly establishes Toyota firmly within the upper echelons of sports car manufacturers. The real payoff to us enthusiasts isn't going to be the the incredibly rare LFA, but the trickle down reaching forthcoming Toyota FT-86 sports car and other future Toyota performance models. If the FT-86 can be 1/20th the car the LFA is, us everyday enthusiasts are in for a real treat.

To be certain, the Toyota FT-86 Concept is only a concept, without definite numbers on anything, but based on what we understand to be the targets for the production program, we're comparing an optimistically priced $20,000, 200 HP FT-86 against a pessimistically priced $400,000, 552 HP Lexus LFA. On the one hand, you can call the FT-86 a bargain, on the other you can call the LFA efficient.

Either way, we're just amazed Toyota debuted two cars we can be excited about at the same auto show.

Click through to see the technical presentation given to automotive journalists today.

And here's what the new Lexus flagship super car looks like with its clothes on — in case you need any reminding.

While Lexus showed off the LFA here in Tokyo, they wouldn't let journalists hop inside and they certainly weren't letting journalists do some hot laps. So, seeing the tach and speedo in a display case was the best we could manage.

And to be clear, it's not entirely all-digital. There's still a non-digital cowl over the speedo and tach, but all the data is digitally displayed and customizable — but it's not like Range Rover's all-digital LCD screen. But the level of clarity and lightning-fast speed in which it moves is fairly astonishing. Click next to see more.

The coolest part is how it turns red when you hit the redline. Very trick display.

889speedshop will be adding their well-known touch to the Lexus LFA 889, making the already exclusive supercar even more-so. With a planned production run of just five cars, the LFA 889 will include the addition of an even lighter carbon-fiber hood and fender skins with an additional duct just ahead of the door. The front fascia has been revised for a more aggressive appearance and higher flow ducting for the front brakes. Out back a carbon fiber splitter will be added and the variable spoiler will be replaced with a fixed carbon fiber unit. Wheels will be also be quite exotic, featuring hollow core spokes beneath the even blacker finish.

Tuning will be kept subtle, with a freer-flowing titanium exhaust system and intake and a light ECU reprogram good for a planned 20 HP bump. Most importantly is the cost, which is expected to add $65,000 to the LFA's $400,000 price tag.

If you believed any of this you're not gullible, you've just been conditioned to expect this kind of thing from shops that love putting out renders of cars before they get them.

However, if you get your hands on an LFA and have an extra $65,000 sitting around, our graphics team can probably make this happen in real life and not just in their awesome renders.

Yes, at $400,000 you could buy many Nissan GT-Rs for that kind of money, but from what we're told, the Lexus LFA is worlds beyond even the GT-R's capability. This type of assertion is the kind of thing which bends the limits of our fragile little minds, but we'll just have to wait and see. Give that Toyota is the master of suppressing excitement in favor of boring cars for the masses, we suspect they had to find something as an outlet for the creative energies of their best engineers. The LFA seems a natural, if not wildly expensive inevitability.

For those of you who have been quietly shaking your heads as Toyota has year-after-year sunk into a malaise of performance and style, the LFA is a shot across the bow. Let's just start by stating the currently available vitals:

- Top speed: 201.94 MPH
- 0-62 MPH: 3.7 seconds
- Redline at 9,000 RPM
- 4.8-liter 72-degree V10
- 553 hp @ 8,700 RPM
- 354 lb-ft of torque at 6,800 RPM
- Titanium valves, connecting rods, exhaust manifold, forged aluminum pistons,
- dry sump oil system
- Six-speed sequential gearbox
- Torsen limited slip differential
- 65% of the body is carbon fiber
- 3,263 pounds with a 48/52 weight distribution
- 15.4" front carbon ceramic rotors with six-piston monoblock calipers up front , 14.2" rear
- Production limited to 500 units

At 3,263 lbs, the LFA is smack dab in the middle of what's considered respectable heft in today's mainstream supercars. Mated to a V10 with a 9000 RPM redline and 560 HP, 354 lb-ft of torque and an already demonstrated F1-like engine note, it'll no-doubt be an absolute riot to drive, assuming you're one of the 500 lucky few to snap one up. At 3.7 seconds 0-62 MPH, you might be able to outrun the car's gravitational pull of awesome.

The vehicle was spotted by user Adrey at the NAGTROC forums. We've seen plenty of versions tarted-up versions, but this person appears to be driving what seems like a full production version, as opposed to those camo'd LF-As running around the 'Ring earlier this year. We'll learn more soon, but we at least now know it'll carry over the RemoteTouch system that debuted on the Lexus HS this year.

UPDATE: Now there's video of it, the dam of LF-A news is breaking.

(Hat tip to Chuck!)
[NAGTROC]