Lexus LFA: First production LFA in the UK at Goodwood

The Lexus LFA turns up at the Goodwood Supercar Sunday Breakfast Club

The Lexus LFA hasn’t had an easy gestation. Half a generation from the promise to the reality, and endless hiccups with lease and buy-back plans in the US – where Lexus initially refused to sell the LFA – meant many of the headlines were less than positive. Which is a real shame.

It’s a real shame because the LFA is, by any measure, a monumental achievement from Lexus. Yes, it may be judged by its slightly corporate-bland design, but what really matters is how it performs and drives. And it performs and drives extremely well.

The LFA boasts a 4.8 litre V10 with 552bhp, 354lb/ft of torque, a 9000 rpm redline and a six-speed sequential ‘box. That makes for a 0-60mph of 3.5 seconds and a top speed of over 200mph. What’s not to love?

Perhaps the price? £336,000 is a huge amount of money for a Lexus – however impressive it is. Not that it’s stopped five hundred hungry buyers around the world slapping down a deposit to take the Lexus supercar home.

All of which means – with LFA production finally starting at the start of 2011 (although disrupted, we assume, by the Tsunami issues in Japan) – that real-world production cars are starting to appear. And visitors to Goodwood’s Supercar Sunday Breakfast Club last week were treated to a close-up look at the first production LFA in the UK.

Naturally, Lexus managed to turn up with a camera crew to record the Oohs and Aahs of an appreciative – and knowledgeable - Breakfast Club audience, who fawned over the LFA and gave Lexus some nice VT to bandy around.

Which we happily do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4xOtddih-w

By Cars UK