2012 Lexus LFA Road Trip Recap

There are road trips, and then there are road trips in a $375,000 supercar. Nearly everyone has done the former at some point, and almost no one has done the latter. Especially in the extremely rare and brand-new 2012 Lexus LFA. Somehow we convinced Lexus that Inside Line should hit the road in the first production LFA dedicated to the press fleet.

But where to go within the 72-hour window afforded to us? Why not Vegas, Baby? Senior Editor Josh Jacquot and I were saddled with the chore. First we headed to a dyno to see what this V10 rocket really produces horsepowerwise, and of course we made a pit stop in Fontana, California, to run our usual barrage of instrumented tests. While at Auto Club Speedway we drag-raced the LFA against a 620-horsepower Porsche 911 GT2 RS. And we even let a couple of IL readers fulfill their fantasies and test-drive the LFA, much to Lexus' displeasure. We also blogged, Tweeted and Foursquared everything along the way.

No road trip is worth burning fuel on if you don't push the car to its limits on at least one curvy road, so we took a run up Glendora Mountain Road. Then it was off to Las Vegas, where we cruised the Strip looking for trouble, and challenged a 2012 Nissan GT-R to a drag race on a closed stretch of desert road. We also made time for a Tweetup with some IL readers at a local Vegas hangout.

Then it was full steam back to Torrance, California, sustained on Red Bull, peanut M&Ms and the natural adrenaline that comes with piloting one of the most raucous and utterly capable supercars ever created.