Lexus LFA Review // A Living Legend

sienna i don't think we're going to be doing that well an lfa what are you kidding me right harrison we're here to film an lfa no you're not yes we are you guys yes oh i love you for that that's great oh that's the greatest surprise what oh my god [Music] yes [Music] [Music] hmm you're watching final house i'm thomas and i'm james and this i'm so excited it's the lexus nfa [Applause] the lexus lfa a car that the world has decided now costs more than double what it did when it first came out why we'll get to that for now we'll just say that when drive motorsports in vancouver said they wanted to toss us the keys to one of the most legendary cars of all time we were on a plane in an instant so we found ourselves here on an open race track with the keys to a 552 horsepower rear-wheel drive icon in fact my only gripe was that we flipped a coin and stupid james got to drive first [Music] hmm hmm [Music] i have ten cylinders ten individual throttle bodies and one hell of a noise oh yes the thing is i kill you oh that's disgusting it is an honor and a privilege to be driving this car right now the amount of engineering it took to get the car to sound like that deserves so much respect they manufactured it they worked to make it screen the way you're hearing it right now and the engine itself is art it revs so quickly the throttle response is instant it's light and it just revs to 9000 rpm [Music] second four downshifts third second first [Music] and if when you hear that this very expensive supercar only does not to 60 in three and a half or 3.6 seconds and you think oh a model s player can take that on you've completely missed the point of course a model s player can dust this in a straight line but you know what the model s plaid can't do near as much everything else [Music] this car has made me pregnant yep i'm pregnant all right maybe you're not into the rowdy thing or drop it into auto now coupled to that 10 cylinder glorious engine is a six-speed transmission automatic and it's a little bit old to be honest so i'm in auto right now but if i drop down to a slower speed so first of all the actual sound of the transmission changing underneath me kind of sounds like someone being choked out it's a bit like it's also a bit like yes it does provide that kind of mechanical connection you can hear what's going on but as a result of the single clutch it has that aventador thing going on where it's just not smooth if you pull away from a light in traffic so i've stopped now and it says five cylinders idling so i've momentarily become a ttrs if i roll onto the power watch my watch my chicken head bobble it's not a smooth experience because it's taking that extra second to get to the next gear which is not something a double clutch would do some say it adds character i think it's a bit of a downside to this car however when you're on it and you switch it to sport that little dobby the house elf who's underneath you getting the next gear ready for you comes alive and it shifts faster and suddenly master has given dobby nfa toby is free [Music] [Applause] all right okay watch it come on no no let's just let's just just let's just take a minute oh my gosh um i need a cigarette your smoke isn't that that's how crazy it is great let me drive it no no we got to talk about design first because i think i hate this part myself and i have to talk to you and not drive the cars the audience needs a breather as well okay fine the next elephant it's great looking anyway no no come on come on there's more to it than that okay all right you're throwing every all the work they did to the design of the bin but just by getting back okay fine all right i have some things to say and i'm gonna say them now okay i think that this car is really unique because it looks very mid-engined but it is front-engined okay it's also a mid-engine because it's front mid-engined it's front mid yes so that means that for those that don't know this is the axle line where the wheels like the center of the wheels are and the engine is entirely behind them towards the driver it's pretty cool i want to have a little weight balance is great i want to have a look at the engine oh okay because yeah it's a v10 right it is a v10 it should be very exciting yes and it's it's not not exciting you know what is exciting though check this out that is a carbon fiber well hood and i wonder how much this costs that's perfect for the old can do the what no candy oh candy it does look good though oh man the engines are so exciting looking no clean you know what is exciting looking what's not looking what is exciting is the engineering that went into that air box it's great it's everything about this car is is designed for acoustics and as i'm sure you found out and i have yet to experience it must sound great on the inside right right what does it sound like on the outside amazing right get those three exhaust tips are really cool yeah no no it is it is still a beautiful engine it's not brightly covered colored or whatever it is but just knowing how much engineering went in this car every single thing in this car is bespoke to the lfa that's what makes it so interesting i don't know if it's a traditionally pretty car um it looks very japanese okay i see what you mean it does it it's not like the most like like it's not a ferrari four five eight do you wanna mean like this simple elegance there is some elegance to the design but it is very certain yeah i know i know oh cool but it is very like what's the word it looks designed yes on the road it looks rather special it does look crazy like i like the wing mirrors or the headlights i love this little right here all right let's have a look at the inside for a while thank you so much i think because you need to really appreciate it first oh right it's like it's like the half the taste is in this can i at least sit in the driver's seat for this yeah okay okay oh yeah you can see the carbon fiber chassis uh okay i closed the door but i i just have to believe you you you see it's so cool the legendary carpenter you know they redesigned the whole thing everyone knows the story if you don't know the story they designed this entire car out of aluminum and then they're like not good enough yeah carbon foot then push production ages and ages yes um okay so a few things that i think are hilarious first of all that is the same key yeah you know this time everything's proprietary to the lexus yeah well this is the same key that my wife had for her 2002 lexus rx 350. it says vintage it's vintage yeah um there's that and then there's the infotainment which i'm going to show you in a second but before we do that the wire and the fuel pump okay ready listen to the starter motor oh oh you're not driving it yet oh okay can we talk about the phone this is number ten it is number ten number ten zero one zero yeah that is really really cool out of 500. there's there's some really really really interesting stuff in here not the infotainment that is the same as it's the same as lexus is right now by the way just just they haven't updated it yet but they've updated this moving pad i almost prefer this to the current touch pad yeah i agree yeah it feels like very the 2000s ibm laptop it's oh it's 100 what it is yeah except the graphics are worse um so the steering wheel is beautiful the leathers are beautiful carbon fiber is beautiful this is a great spec the white on the red it's so nice really awesome speck there's just like every there's a lot of like stuff to explore in this car everything feels really really thought out do you know what i mean like look at these look at these these i think that's my favorite thing they're so neat like i love that and this door handle you can see they left that that bolt exposed and there's like this beautiful hinge and it just feels so expensive it looks like something that could come off of an iron man suit yeah yeah why why didn't they keep like why didn't they carry this down that it trickled down to the new models which these like these indicators oh i know i don't know i don't think these they might just be the best looking in the industry yeah absolutely the fact that you can get in a 250 thousand dollar maybach and it still has yeah just like regular same thing as an a-class exactly oh maybe that's why they didn't do it or maybe i just answered my own question they've kept it special um yeah but like other things that are really neat the way to adjust the seats is really cool right it took me a while to figure out how to use it but once i did figure out how to use it it's like second nature you just have to recalibrate yes exactly and they're just really cool looking also there's the leather's so nice and it the entire part of the seat is kind of like smooth and you get in the car you kind of go yeah into the car right but you know you've got the same shrek ears that you get in the other lexus models yep even even the surround of the where you put the key in is uh carbon fiber really yeah there's just a few details in here this is stuff you don't usually talk about like how to physically operate the vehicle but it's really neat to put it in drive you select a paddle and turn the parking brake off to get out of that you have to pull both paddles and put you in neutral similar to a lamborghini but to go in reverse you have to go from drive to neutral and click this reverse thing over here and if you want to get out of that you have to click both paddles into neutral and then one paddle into drive it's like it's like a it's like a symphony of movements to do a three-point turn i think symphony is a good word for this car every well i don't know i wouldn't know i haven't driven it yet what do you think about a symphony it really is a collection of inputs would you get out yeah okay [Music] oh my god [Music] i have so much to say oh yeah i'm supposed to be reviewing review the car thomas oh my god okay nice just oh my god that engine is just it's you you have to be in here to truly believe what it sounds like oh my god here's something i didn't see coming this car is so much more raw than i thought it was gonna be this it's just like a like a tactile connection to everything these paddles make this clink the steering even though it's electric it's a really communicative feedback it's a very small steering rack it's hardly doing anything is the car's so light the suspension is just it's not that soft this is a serious car [Music] oh man compared to a lambo maybe it's a little bit softer but compared to any other lexus oh my [Music] many many cars share parts but the parts in this are all lexus lfa as we said like the suspension components are all aluminum and this carbon fiber floor and it's so good to drive this is just oh my god the steering is perfect the chassis balance is and i don't use this word that often perfect [Music] thanks to the outrageous throttle and engine response when i'm in a drift like that it's so easy to control the angle it is literally just right foot directly related to the angle of the rear thanks michelin for replacing the tires ahead of time because we'll do more of that now this is a meet your heroes moment is going very well oh my god i know all of you love this car it's it's almost everyone's favorite car because of that engine but you know what people don't talk about is just how good of a car it is period take away the engine actually please don't take away the engine but if you did it's still unbelievably good to drive [Music] what on earth it's just so precise all of you want this car to be good i wanted this car to be good it's good it's maybe the best this is one of the best cars if not the best car i've ever driven uh [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Throttle House

Views: 1,387,288

Keywords: Lexus lfa review, lexus lfa exhaust, lexus lfa sound, lfa noise, lexus lfa performance, lexus lfa drag race, lexus lfa track, lfa vs lamborghini, lfa vs ferrari, best supercar, lexus supercar, lexus lfa straight pipe, lfa acceleration, lfa revs, lfa engine sound, lexus engine sound, lfa vs gtr, lfa vs nsx, lexus lfa 2021, lexus lfa throttle house, lexus lfa drift, lfa crash, lfa 0-60, lfa 0-100, lfa night drive, lfa pov, lfa pure noise, best sounding car

Id: wZvvvfWsw9w

Length: 20min 17sec (1217 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 27 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/YEEZY_whats_GOOD]

Everyone is gonna be talking about that gorgeous exhaust note but the paddle clicks deserve so much praise. Probably feel so satisfying

[u/Echo1201]

If I ever get to see an LFA, I'd probably react like Harrison

EDIT: I wanna know if Harrison got a chance to test drive the LFA or ride shotgun. Tell us u/Jamesthrottlehouse!

[u/DanielG165]

The LFA is like the opera singer of the super car world; just beautifully smooth sounding throughout its entire range.

[u/Syscrush]

FUCK YES.

This resonates so much with me. I'm a boring and grumpy old guy now, but for more than 30 years I was just obsessed with "performance" cars and motorcycles. For a long time, I could tell you detailed info from the spec sheets of US and Japanese cars, and Japanese and Euro bikes - past and present. I could tell you about races won and lost, about technical innovations, power, weight, 0-60 times, etc.

Then that just stopped for me. I don't know how much of it is about me getting older, but I honestly think it's just about how so much power/performance has become commoditized over the last ~10 years. A fucking Civic Type R beat a Gallardo's Nurburgring time, for Christ's sake. You can order a Camry with more power than any Ferrari made before the Testarossa. You can trade less than $10k for a used motorcycle with more power than a C4 Corvette had. It's all just out of control.

So we have these massive, massive power numbers - and in cars that's generally coming from turbos or EV drive systems. And the cars (generally) are really heavy, and just to keep the drivers from killing themselves and others, they're just loaded with driver aids. All of those driver aids are amazing technology and are super impressive, but IMO they negate the point of having a performance/sport vehicle. Keith Code has been doing his racing school on BMW S1000RR bikes for about 10 years now because with the various settings configured correctly, they're safer than the 600's he used to use. Wheelie control, traction control, ABS, etc. Amazing! These are accomplishments that the engineers should be proud of. But read The Song of the Sausage Creature and try to tell me that these bikes didn't give up some of their charm when they stopped being widowmakers.

Today, a performance envelope that is miles higher and wider than can be reasonably used on any public road is a given on any modern sport-oriented car or bike, and even many trucks/SUVs. But so what? When it's everywhere it stops being special.

What is special is the kind of visceral, mechanical experience we see the boys having with this LFA. The only spec they threw out was immediately shit on to say that the numbers aren't the point.

One of my profs decades ago said something that I find myself referring back to often: any technology reaches its zenith after becoming obsolete. The very best sailing ships were built when they had to compete with steamers. The very best steamers were built when they had to compete with diesel. The very best slide rules were built after calculators started gaining traction.

And this car is another example. The purest, highest expression of a classic-style, thoroughly mechanical road car.

A great video about an absolutely sick car that was underappreciated in its time.

[u/powduh]

I used to go to a lot of trackdays. Every now and then, I'd find myself speaking with someone who had driven an LFA (and one time, I spoke with someone who actually owned one). It is, without a doubt, the car that everyone agrees exceeds expectations. I never spoke with a single person who had driven one and not been blown away. Everyone was always overwhelmingly enthusiastic about how great it was to drive, though everyone also had a hard time describing exactly why it was so amazing.

Definitely my #1 "if I ever have the chance to drive this car, I will make it happen" car.

[u/mr_duong567]

This was totally worth playing on my home theater. Props to the whole team for filming and capturing this so well!

[u/gHHqdm5a4UySnUFM]

This video made me feel like a kid again watching Top Gear and being in awe of the supercars they’d feature

[u/jerpear]

I can imagine this car becoming the most desirable of all supercars from this generation, except maybe the Veyron. Once electric cars make speed attainable for everyone, the sound, mechanical tactility and response becomes so much more important and impressive.

Amazing sound and cinematography guys, that video really gave the car its deserved dues.

[u/miloestthoughts]

Watching some dude in a button up t-shirt drift $500k might be the most nerve wrecking thing I’ve ever seen tbh.