Lexus Sport Concept: Has the new LFA finally arrived?

Unveiled at the prestigious, invite-only  Quail event in California, Lexus’s Sport Concept offers a tantalising taste of what’s to come. But is it the new LFA we’ve been waiting for?

The LFA returns! Well… maybe. We can’t say for sure whether this is a subtle foreshadowing of Lexus’ new production supercar, or just another automotive apparition from the Japanese marque. 

We certainly hope it’s the former. Not least because this latest rendering — with its jaw-dropping stance, silhouette, and use of LED accents — is exactly how we’d dreamed an LFA Mark 2 should look. Certainly, if the Sport Concept’s blend of ‘dynamic and emotional elements’ make it to the road, the customer queue would be out the door and round the block. 

So what do we actually know, then? Frustratingly little. Lexus has dropped some hints to the press but in reality, it's keeping its lips tightly sealed for now. According to the Aichi-based firm this ‘progressively styled, future-focused yet truly authentic sportscar signals the way forward for Lexus design’. Crucially, though, the announcement fails to clarify whether said future-focused machine would wear the fabled LFA script.

But that hasn’t stopped petrolheads around the globe from theorising what could be. Assuming the sport concept represents an evolution of the Electrified Sports Concept — which stole the show at the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2022 — it’s unlikely the LFA’s spine-tingling 1LR-GUE V10 will be making a comeback. Instead, a fully electric setup producing four-figures worth of horsepower and featuring solid-state battery tech, will propel the Sports Concept’s production spinoff. 

Performance? Expect a 0-60 mph time in the low two second region. Oh, and that powertrain might even be hooked up to a proper manual gearbox — which would be a definite one-up over the original LFA’s jerky, single-clutch robotised manual unit. Maybe the future’s not so bleak after all. 

As teasers go, this one’s got to be hottest of the year so far. But only time will tell if Lexus’ supercar dream comes to fruition. One thing’s for certain, though, it’s got some enormous boots to fill with the LFA as a grandad.

But what do you think? Is this how the new production-spec supercar will look? And more importantly, will Lexus take a new, all-electric route, or throw a curveball and fit a high-revving petrol engine in the same vein as the analogue GMA G.50 and the raw Garagisti GP1? Watch this space.

Hero image credit: Lexus