The Lexus LFA supercar was almost beyond comprehension. Jalopnik bossman Patrick George once described it perfectly “Its name stands for Lexus Fucking Awesome.” Lexus knows we want another one, but will they ever build it? Well, it hasn’t said yes, but it hasn’t closed the door either.
The Lexus LFA was far removed from any other car that the Japanese luxury brand has made. It was a legit supercar, more Ferrari than Lexus, with a price-tag of almost $400,000. Under the hood was a screaming, naturally aspirated V10 that sounded like a Formula 1 race car.
Today it is still one of the rarest supercars you will ever encounter, as Lexus only made 500 copies between 2010 and 2012. Some are mysteriously still out there for sale as brand “new” cars.
Anyway, Lexus knows that if it wants to run with some of the bigger players and be seen as a top-tier luxury brand that selling a bunch of crossovers is just part of the equation. While the LF-1 Limitless concept that debuted in Detroit is obviously a moneymaking focus for the brand, speaking with CarBuzz, Lexus Group Vice President and General Manager Jeff Bracken recognized that there needs to be something more emotional than just a super fancy SUV:
“We need more halo representation. We hear often from our dealers if we can have an LFA follow-up... So you never know. But that car was just so out there in terms of technology, power and handling.
I wouldn’t rule it out. I think that when we hear so many emotional and high number of requests for a follow-up to LFA, we certainly won’t ignore that. It’s not a closed door.”
Will another LFA ever happen? It’s nice to think that somewhere there is some Lexus skunkworks team cobbling pieces of racecars together to make it happen. But I think we all know that even if a successor did make it to production, in this age where practically every supercar has some combination of turbos and hybrids, getting another LFA with a naturally aspirated motor that you wind up to 9000 RPM, is not likely.
Maybe that 1,000 horsepower road legal Toyota Le Mans prototype we saw at the Tokyo Auto Salon is the solution. I wouldn’t say no to that.