Lexus LFA Drift Car Has a NASCAR Heart
Japanese OTG Motorsports Builds Wild, Americanized Lexus LFA Drift Car
In stock form, the Lexus LFA utilizes a highly responsive, high strung V10. It’s a truly exotic and incredibly technological engine that ranks among the all time greats. And even though we’ll probably never find out if one can run hundreds of thousands of miles with no issue, it’s probably capable of doing so. But when OTG Motorsports set out to build an LFA drift car, they didn’t want to take any chances.
So, they did what any red-blooded American would do: remove that fancy V10 and wedge a TRD NASCAR-derived V8 under the hood. The, ahem, “smaller” motor produces 750 hp in stock form. That is, until OTG slapped a turbo on it and blew past the 1,000 hp mark. It might seem like complete and total blasphemy, but there are legitimate reasons for the swap other than reliability.
One of those concerns is cost, not to mention the availability of parts. It’s a heck of a lot cheaper and easier to rebuild a TRD than a Lexus V10. And race cars, as you know, require lots of maintenance. And they break stuff, a lot. Plus, we have to admit, just listening to the sounds this LFA drift car produces while sliding around are, well, different. But satisfying, nonetheless.
The funniest thing about the entire project is that is wasn’t done by a bunch of Americans from the southern states. Nope, OTG is a Japanese company. And the car is driven by a man named Yoichi Imamura, in Japan’s D1GP series. We often hear about how the Japanese love and emulate American culture. But this takes things to a whole ‘nother level.
