LEXUS - LFA

THE STORY OF OBSESSION GIFTED A BOTTOMLESS BUDGET

Were you to start trying to pin down the greatest performance car ever built by a select group of countries, you'd end up with some genuine icons. For Britain, you could choose the McLaren F1. For Germany, it could be the Porsche 911. The US has the Chevy Corvette, Italy has the Ferrari F40, and France the magnificent Bugatti Veyron. But Japan? You could make a case for the Nissan GT-R line, the Mazda MX-5 or the Honda NSX, but in truth, the answer is none of the above. It's the astonishing Lexus LFA. And it may always and forever be the Lexus LFA.

What makes that fact even more astonishing is that the LFA is the only supercar that Lexus has ever built. Yes, we've had perfectly creditable offerings such as the LC and the IS F, but a true no-holds-barred statement of capability? That was an idea that required a constellation of stars to align.

Tracing the genesis of the LFA leads us to a bar in Hokkaido. Haruhiko Tanahashi, developer of the ST165 Celica GT-Four, realised that the nearby Shibetsu proving ground would be the perfect place to develop a supercar.

Tanahashi managed to tentatively attract the interest of his boss, TMC's top vehicle engineer Tetsuo Hattori. Later that year, he'd recruited TMC's chief test engineer Hiromu Naruse to the 'Project 680' and, after a bunch of rough napkin sketches, they formulated the idea for a front-engined, reardriven coupe. The brief was simple: create a vehicle which showcased Lexus engineering and quality. It had to thrill the enthusiastic amateur yet still deliver for the more capable driver. As the pair exchanged ideas, one very clear and somewhat humbling truth emerged: neither Tanahashi nor Naruse had the organisational clout to drive this project off the back of the napkin.