Lexus LFA

The Lexus LFA final car has a very long history behind it: ten years; the LFA project was in fact entrusted to chief engineer Haruhiko Tanahashi, who began working on it in 2000, together with a team of engineers and Hiromu Naruse, one of Toyota’s most experienced test drivers. From 2000 to 2004, therefore, the project was known within the development center as P280; in 2004 it was officially called LF-A, first with the creation of a meta-project result in 2003 and then with a prototype called LF-A in 2004. The first public appearance therefore took place in January 2005, at the Detroit Motor Show with a concept, designed by Toyota in collaboration with the Italian Fioravanti. The concept car, equipped with an aluminum chassis, does not have a long life, albeit an intense one: even before its presentation Tanahashi had changed his mind, stating that “Aluminum is a technology of yesterday” and designs a fiber-reinforced plastic chassis. of carbon, manufactured by Toyota in a facility made specifically for this purpose using the technologies of the Toyota F1 team. The result is a second prototype, presented as a concept in 2007. This concept had much more streamlined lines than the first, which are softened by a third concept, this time of a spider model presented in 2008. In 2009 the production in series with the umpteenth presentation to the public of a model of the car, this time in its final form. On this occasion the official name of the car is also presented: LFA without a hyphen between the last two letters. In 2010 the Lexus LFA is officially in production.