Lexus LFA hits eight ball

The numbers might not be huge, but the addition of three extra LFA supercars to the Australian Lexus fleet early next year will add a decent blip to the local arm's bottom line.

With its successful bid to up local allocations from the five vehicles originally announced to eight, Lexus has moved closer to its original hopes of bringing 10 LFAs to Australia.

At an estimated $750,000 apiece (according to a statement from previous CEO John Roca), this will equate to something like an extra $2.2 million in the local arm's kitty.

The company doesn't expect to have any problems selling eight LFAs in Australia.

According to Lexus Australia chief executive Tony Cramb, "Well before we confirmed five LFAs for Australia we had more than enough solid enquiries to quadruple that allocation. Lexus Australia's initial LFA allocation was five vehicles, but we were caught well short of market demand."

As the then-CEO for Lexus, John Roca, confirmed in a discussion with the Carsales Network in October 2009, the bulk of that demand is in-house. "The first people on the list are our dealers," Roca said.

However private customers are expected to pick up from the point that Lexus dealers sell the cars.

In 2009, Roca said "We know they (Lexus dealers) have VIP customers that have been diehard Lexus people for many, many years and read about the car, know about the car and expressed interest in the car. We've been quoting figures anywhere between $500,000 and $1.0 million and it didn't shake anybody off of the tree... It didn't scare any of them away."

The mid/front-engined rocketship is powered by a 412kW 4.8-litre V10 and is said to reach 100km/h from a standstill in 3.7 seconds. Already an even faster Special Edition version with 420kW is in the pipeline.

Lexus plans to produce LFAs for two years only, and will personally deliver 20 a month to customers around the globe.

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