Watch the Lexus LFA Tear Up the Nürburgring, Before It Became a Legend

It’s fun to go back through the archive. And with Toyota and Lexus’s new sports car inching closer to reality, we’re going to take a look back at its predecessor, the mighty Lexus LFA. Back in 2009, when this website was still called WorldCarFans, we uploaded a video of a near-production-ready LFA testing on the Nürburgring. Now, it’s a fun window to the past.

You can imagine the anticipation the auto world was feeling at this point. Lexus had started the “LF-A” project in 2000, and it had been testing prototypes at the Ring and elsewhere since 2003. But the car was long delayed, as Lexus reengineered the car, notably going from aluminum to carbon-fiber construction. 

By 2009, the LFA was just about done, but this was a dark moment for the auto industry, as the global recession wreaked havoc in the car world. Still, Toyota somehow ended up getting the LFA into production, debuting the car in October 2009. It was a slow-seller in its day, with Lexus having a hard time moving the planned 500 units, but now, it’s a bona fide modern classic.

Watching this video, it’s easy to see why. Nothing looks or sounds like the LFA, with its howling 4.6-liter naturally aspirated V-10. And thanks to all its Nürburgring development, nothing drives quite like an LFA either.

It’s also a bittersweet video to watch. This was shot a little over a year before Hiromu Naruse, the “father” of the LFA and close confidant of Akio Toyoda, died in a car crash on the roads near the Nürburgring in a prototype. Naruse logged countless laps of the track in the LFA, helping define the Lexus supercar, and paving the way for many Toyota/Lexus enthusiast cars to follow. 

Without the work that Naruse and his team were doing, captured in this humble video, Toyota and Lexus would not be making the wonderful enthusiast cars it is today.