The untouched Lexus LFA

In 2009, Lexus released the now legendary LFA in a limited run of just 500 cars, and the fact it made production at all is almost a miracle in itself.

Lexus has always been known for making well-built and reliable cars. Unfortunately, they’re usually associated with the older generation. All the preconceptions about the brand are what make the expensive and exotic LFA all the more intriguing. The car pictured here is quite unique, which we'll touch on, but let's take a brief look at how the LFA came to be.

The whole project was a pie-in-the-sky idea from something of a skunkworks team scribbling drawings and plans on napkins. The idea was to create a unique halo car that would inject influence throughout the rest of the brand. It all sounded very exciting in theory, but it was a huge sell to the Toyota and Lexus bigwigs.

Something this special would require massive resources, clever engineering work, and a lot of time. It proved difficult to convince the top management of the benefits of a halo car and a lot of them were against the idea seeing as all of the parts required would need to be designed from the ground up and couldn’t be repurposed elsewhere. It would be a huge departure from Lexus’ usual production cars.

Eventually, it was decided that a project like this could not be measured in the same way as Lexus’ other mass produced cars and a concept surfaced in 2003 with many more iterations to follow. The production car was finally launched in 2009 and 500 cars were subsequently built at a rate of one a day. The final car that rolled off the production line was a white Nürburgring Edition in 2012.

The car in question here is chassis no.262 and it’s something quite special. The only miles on this triple-piped white-on-white LFA’s odometer are the testing miles done by Lexus, other than that it has never been driven on the road. If you wanted to see exactly how one of these would have looked fresh out of the factory, this is the car.

Step inside the white leather-clad interior and you’ll immediately notice the plastic wrapping covering the seats, sun visors and infotainment system. As satisfying as it would be to peel it all off, you are immediately made fully aware of how unique and valuable this car is in its current condition. 

Perhaps the thought of that 9000rpm 4.8-litre V10 not getting used is a tad sad, but don’t worry, owner Joe Priday also has another LFA that gets used properly. This car is unique in its own way and provides a time capsule experience into how one of these cars looked brand new out of the factory.

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