#LexusLfa

When you’ve got a car that will do 0-60 mph in well under four seconds and top more than 200 mph, it’s probably a good idea to learn how to drive it, or at least explore some of its capabilities without coming a cropper.

Undeniably those that are able to afford the limited quantity Lexus LFA, probably have some expendable income to customize their Japanese supercar. Lexus North America has been making a strong push in marketing the LFA to the affluent and now they have a boost thanks to CEC, with their announcement of three different tuning packages available to LFA Nurburgring edition owners.

Toyota recently celebrated its 10th anniversary of the Toyota Motorsports Festival, and what better way to show off what Toyota Motorsports is all about than to assemble a team of flagship Lexus LFA supercars in various colors and taking them all out to the track at Fuji Speedway?

That’s exactly what Toyota did, and we’re fortunate enough to spy a video of the action. We’re pretty jealous.

One more noteworthy appearance in the video is Lexus’ IS-F Race Car Concept acting as the safety vehicle on the track.

Video available after the jump:

Lotus will leverage their partnership with Toyota be equipping a variant of their new, flagship Esprit with the hand-crafted V10 used in the Lexus LFA.

Claus Ettensberger, founder of CEC Wheels, was fortunate enough to have some of the Lexus PR types bring a Lexus LFA around so he could take a little test drive. What these Lexus people didn’t know was that Claus doesn’t just sell wheels, he’s CLAUS, which means he must drive completely crazy all the time.

Claus is a 4-year veteran of the Bullrun Rally, and also participates in the Gumball3000, generally in some type of tuned German exotic. Well, now Claus has a new record to add to his rally trophies: the first person to be caught speeding in the Lexus supercar.

Hit the jump to watch the short video and see just how fast Claus was going. Ouch.

Over the weekend we brought you several photos of the Lexus LFA supercar in a stunning new yellow paint scheme. Lexus has since released a selection of studio shots of this particular car and we just can’t resist showing them to you.

Several weeks ago we brought you a few pictures of a yellow Lexus LFA; now that car has been officially unveiled on the Concept Lawn at Pebble Beach, during the annual Concours d’Elegance. Those early pictures were misleading about the exact shade of yellow, however. Seeing the car in person it is definitely more of a soft yellow than the eye searing color previous photos had lead us to believe.

Lexus aims to prove just how impressive its new LFA supercar is by competing in what is arguably the world’s most prestigious sports car series, the FIA GT1 Championship. The carbon-chassis 552-hp V10 exotic will reportedly take on rivals such as the Lamborghini Murciélago, Ford GT, Aston Martin DB9, Maserati MC12 and domestic rival Nissan with its race-spec GT-R.

Originally launched in a pristine white, Lexus went on to debut its LFA s upercar in matte-black at the 2009 SEMA Show. Then we brought you the very first pictures of a red LFA. Now, thanks to LexusEnthusiast, we have the very first photos of a a not-so-mellow yellow version of the Japanese supercar.

Hiromu Naruse, Toyota’s chief test driver and the man widely regarded as the father of the Lexus LFA, died in a car crash today on a German highway near the Nurburgring race track.

According to reports, Naruse veered into an oncoming lane while piloting a prototype of the Lexus LFA Nurburgring edition and hit a BMW 3-Series, being driven by two other test drivers. The BMW drivers survived the crash but one reportedly is in critical condition.

Hit the jump to see a German news report on the incident.

[Source: Autoblog]

The Lexus IS is back for 2011 with a few minor tweaks that should make the car more enticing. According to a leaked Japanese-market brochure, the new models get a 15% bump in fuel efficiency, LED daytime running lights and a revised front bumper, while inside, a USB port for MP3 players is standard. F Sport models get a different bumper and rear spoiler, new wheels reminiscent of the LFA supercar’s rims, a new gear knob and sports seats. No word on whether North America will see all of these changes.

We normally try and stay away from “Cool Ebay Listings” or things of that nature, but this is a truly historic listing that you won’t see again for quite some time. Bring A Trailer, possibly the best resource for classic cars online, has an all-original, left-hand driver Toyota 2000GT up for sale.

Lexus has just launched a vehicle registry for the F-Sport product lineup, allowing owners to plot their locations on a map, and see where other F-Sport owners are hanging out.

The registry is open to owners of the IS-F, LS460 Sports, vehicles with F-Sport accessories and the LFA supercar. As of now, there are allegedly three LFA owners on the registry, but we suspect that anyone who actually owns this car wouldn’t register their public location, and would instead hang out with a super elite group of people in locations that are off limits to us common folk.

Hit the jump to read the official press release

[Source: ClubLexus]

The sole commercial for the Lexus LFA shows the $375,000 supercar doing a seemingly impossible feat; shattering a champagne flute with its engine note. Watching the special “behind the scenes” video put together by Lexus makes it a lot more believable; a physics professor from the University of Southern California was brought in to help calculate the various frequencies required from the engine, and what size and thickness of glass would break in an appropriate manner (seriously). The man behind the wheel is famous racing driver and commentator Scott Pruett, and he gets the pleasure of running the LFA up and down through the gears in its quest for champagne-glass-carnage. The one question we have is, “how the hell did Lexus get a dyno installed in the middle of an empty warehouse?” Hit the jump for some of these answers, and more awesome LFA footage.

The champagne glass has been with Lexus since the beginning. Back in 1989, Lexus launched the LS luxury sedan by revving the car’s engine while a pyramid of champagne glasses sat atop the hood – unmoved. Now Lexus is putting a new twist with a short video spot where a lone champagne flute is shattered by the sound generated by the LFA’s 4.8-liter V10 engine.

According to Lexus, the company employed, “a renowned physicist from a leading university” help set up the test – including discovering exactly what type of champagne glass has the same frequency as the LFA’s exhaust note. When the pitch of the glass matches the pitch created from the 552-hp V10 (somewhere between 7,000 and 9,000 rpm), the glass shatters – without the use of special effects or CGI.

The LFA has been praised for its exceptional sounding V10 engine, which Lexus now also offers as a ring tone for free. Download yours here:

http://www.lexus-lfa.com

Check out the awesome video after the jump: