Man Maths: Lexus LFA

I can see why. The Porsche is better looking, sweeter to drive, far lighter, it has a manual transmission rather than a slightly dim-witted robotised gearbox and, well, it’s a Porsche not a Lexus. But I still adore the LFA. It could look like a Moskvitch and handle like one too, but I’d love it all the same as long as it still made that sound. Its Yamaha engine wails like a high-revving V10 should, but there’s a hollow, ghostly quality to it at full song that goes right through you.

It looks amazing, if not classically pretty, and it definitely doesn’t handle like a Soviet snotbox. It also feels beautifully screwed together inside. I spent a very happy day in one on the south coast three years back for one of my I Have Never stories. It’s one of those cars that you step out of a different person to the one who got inside – it changes you, like only really special supercars can. Andrew Frankel adores the LFA. We both know someone who owned one and sold it. Andrew has never knowingly passed up an opportunity to tease him about that…

There is a new LFA coming this year, rumoured to be called LFR. But it might yet carry Toyota not Lexus badging and, inevitably, the LFA’s naturally aspirated V10 will be a distant memory. The new car, essentially the production version of the 2022 Toyota GR GT3 concept and built to homologate a new GT3 racing car, will be powered by a hybridised and probably turbocharged V8.

Whether or not it ever displaces the LFA as Japan’s greatest supercar we shall have to wait and see.

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