262-Mile Lexus LFA Spotted for Sale

We all know the collector car market has gone wild in recent years, especially for rare cars. We’re constantly seeing Carrera GTs, Murcielago SVs, Enzos and F40s being listed or auctioned for higher and higher figures, but if there’s one car you almost never see hit the market, it’s the Lexus LFA.

Japan’s answer to the European hypercars, the LFA is a totally unique prospect with an iconic-sounding, front-mounted V10 developed in partnership with Yamaha. The V10 sends 553hp to the rear wheels via a six-speed single-clutch paddleshift gearbox, and is capable of pushing the LFA all the way up to 203mph. Jeremy Clarkson quite famously mentioned on Top Gear that the LFA has a digital tachometer because it revs to its 9,000rpm redline too quickly for an analogue dial to keep up.

Built around a carbon fibre tub, the LFA weighs in at around 1,500kg, with around 65% of its body mass being made up of carbon fibre, with alluminium alloys making up the remainder including subframes, crash structures and suspension mountings.

The LFA was famously overengineered, and Lexus claimed to have lost money on every single one of the 500 examples that left the factory — something it shares with the Bugatti Veyron.

With 500 made, technically there are as many LFAs in the world as there are McLaren 675LT Coupes, there’s one more than there are Ferrari 458 Speciale Apertas, and 101 more than there are Enzos, and yet it seems LFAs come on the market with such scarcity that it feels like even more of a unicorn.

They especially don’t come up often like this one. A right-hand-drive car, in red, that has covered just 262 miles from new. On sale at The Octane Collection, the car was first delivered to Japan in January 2012, where it spent 10 years mollycoddled before it was imported to the UK in 2022, where it has remained with its sole UK owner.

According to The Octane Collection, significant in its history is the orginal Lexus issued and branded USB stick which meticulously documents the car’s entire build process from start to finish including names and signutres of everyone involved in this bespoke project.

Originally, the LFA would have set you back £340,000 in the UK, if you could get one, and for some time, that’s where they stayed. Then, as with so many cars, from 2020 onwards, LFAs were strapped to a rocket set for the moon. Before long, values doubled, and now, this true unicorn example has smashed the million-pound barrier with a price tag of £1,149,995.

A lot? It sure is, but compare it with the Carrera GT. The two were similarly priced when new, they’re similar in terms of ethos and outright performance, as a recent Carwow drag race video showed, the LFA is more than twice as rare, and arguably no less significant and unique.

Either way, seeing one of these on the market or in the flesh (preferably at full chat down the start/finish straight at Secret Meet) never gets any less special.