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" Millville, N.J.\u2014The spanking-new New Jersey Motorsports Park seems a little out of place in the middle of the Jersey Pine Barrens because its country-club atmosphere is a sharp contrast to the, umm, rustic countryside halfway between Philadelphia and Atlantic City. Over on the other side of the property, there&amp;#039;s a paddock full of Porsches and Lotuses investigating the outer limits of automotive performance at a track day. Over here on the Lightning course there are three cars: a couple of Lexus IS-F mules and a single, freshly painted LFA. It&amp;#039;s every motor journalist&amp;#039;s dream: track time in a really, really fast car.  The Specs Ten years aborning, the LFA is earmarked to be Lexus&amp;#039; halo car, a cost-no-object testbed for the highest performance that technology can provide. We&amp;#039;re reminded that even at this stratospheric performance level, it&amp;#039;s still a Lexus, and fit, finish and refinement are all expected to provide Lexus-like impressions and comfort. The LFA starts with a carbon-fiber tub, fabbed with prepreg, resin transfer molding, and carbon-fiber reinforced sheet-molding compound. Interestingly, Toyota started in business generations ago by building textile weaving machines and the company claims that that expertise was used to build a machine to circularly weave carbon-fiber layers around a mold for the A-pillar. The original monocoque tub for the LFA project, which started in 2000, was an aluminum fabrication, but was switched to carbon fiber to shed over 200 pounds. Aluminum, however, is still used in the front and rear substructures since the material readily deforms during a crash. Still, the LFA is no flyweight\u2014it tips the scales at around 3500 pounds. The LFA is propelled by a 4.8-liter V10 that produces 552 hp at 8700 rpm and 354 lb-ft at 6800 rpm. Lexus claims the V10 is as compact as a V8, and weighs no more than a conventional V6. At 115 hp/liter, it&amp;#039;s producing as much horsepower per liter as most racing engines, and will rev from idle to 9000 rpm in only 600 milliseconds, necessitating the use of an electronic display for the tachometer, because the needle on a conventional tach couldn&amp;#039;t possibly keep up. (The redline, by the way, is a dizzying 9500 rpm), The rear-set but front-mounted engine is dry-sumped to keep oil moving and to permit the crankshaft to be as low to the ground as possible. The driveshaft is offset vertically by gearing it to the crankshaft and running it through a rigid torque tube to the rear-mounted transmission. The automatic sequential gearbox is shifted by steering-column-mounted paddles. Mounting the transaxle in the rear allows a 48/52 front/rear weight distribution.  The interior is fairly cramped, even for my 5-foot 10-inch frame, but the seat is perfect once you settle in. There are so many gadgets and switches on the instrument panel that some of them are invisible unless you know where to look. It&amp;#039;s not a car for the casual Hollywood star or unprepared civilian to tool around in. The Drive Currently Lexus has exactly one developmental demo car, so the Lexus PR people are (justifiably) nervous that their baby will get wadded up before the day is over. So am I, so I try to get in line early. Endurance driver Scott Pruett has been helping Lexus engineers develop the LFA: He&amp;#039;s along to keep us out of trouble. Track time at a new racetrack is always daunting; Fortunately, NJMP&amp;#039;s Lightning 1.9 mile circuit is easy to learn. A trio of laps in one of the IS-F mules sufficed to learn which way the turns went. Terminal velocities on the front straight are nearly 130, plenty fast, but well below the LFA&amp;#039;s 202-mph top speed. Finally, we get a chance to follow Pruett around for three laps. The engine power is prodigious, but it&amp;#039;s very Lexus-like\u2014refined and smooth, but punchy enough to zing the car to 60 mph in only 3.7 seconds. Bottom-end torque is adequate\u2014well, more than adequate for the street\u2014but not overwhelming on the track. Top-end power is astonishing\u00AD\u2014the automated gearbox ticking off paddle-commanded upshifts and downshifts. The truly amazing thing about the LFA is the brakes, four giant ceramic composite rotors and six-piston calipers that pull the speed off fast.  The single most impressive thing about the LFA is that it&amp;#039;s only two laps in the driver&amp;#039;s seat before I&amp;#039;m perfectly at home, putting in laps only a few seconds off Pruett&amp;#039;s pace. Terminal velocity on the front straight is nearly 150, and that&amp;#039;s braking early out of deference to the Lexus&amp;#039; PR staff&amp;#039;s pacemaker budget. Just think about slowing down or cornering, and it happens. Simply look at the apex to a corner, and the car is there, effortlessly. After a handful of three-lap experiences from the left seat, I take the opportunity to sit shotgun with Pruett. It&amp;#039;s apparent that he has a lot of time in the car: a trio of laps that would have been fast enough to take a trophy at Daytona during the 24 hours get ticked off like a ride around the parking ramp, all while fervently discussing the car&amp;#039;s handling attributes. But still, it&amp;#039;s so easy to drive that he&amp;#039;s now significantly faster than me. (Or maybe he&amp;#039;s more afraid of the PR guys \u2026) The Bottom Line If Toyota can bring even a pinch of the LFA&amp;#039;s supreme performance and handling to a car that the rest of us can actually buy\u2014like the upcoming FT-86 sports coupe, they&amp;#039;ll have enthusiasts beating down the doors. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a5753/2012-lexus-lfa-test-drive/>