05RollaXRS

Something really is odd. I wish I could buy this DVD from somewhere. Despite starting from a rolling start, LFA reached "only" 249 km/h in 1200 meters (1.2 KM). I looked up AutoCar test and they tested Lexus LFA prototype 1000 meters (1 km) from a dead stop and it reached 259 km/h in that test. It is 10 km/h higher in a shorter distance than what Best Motoring got from a rolling start. The 2010 GTR got 254 km/h in the same test, SLS AMG got 262 km/h in the same test.

Flipside909: Did Kinosheita start in 2nd gear from low speeds? What were the speeds other cars achieved in the same test? Thanks.

My suspicion is Kinosheita was in too tall a gear (2nd gear) from low speeds start making it rev slower to redline. If he had begun from 1st gear, he would have much more torque available all across the rev range and could have pulled easily.

TF109B

Or he could have been shifting a bit early, or taking it easy (someone's car), these results aren't always solid- they are entertaining but hardly always an indication of what the cars REAL results would be. Maybe they had a head wind? lol- looking for explanations

flipside909

Kino****a pushed it. There were times when he was doing his best to keep the rear from drifting out. He ran TRAC OFF the whole time. And yes the car belongs to a private owner. It was used immediately after the owner took delivery. I've experienced 170+ with Scott in Fontana but it wasn't from a standstill or a slow rolling start.

TF109B

Could be the TRAC OFF making the difference. Not sure if with it on is intrusive in any manner, but maybe he felt he'd be faster without it. It's just weird though to see speeds that 'low' from a straight over a kilometer. Even battle of the supercars had the yellow prototype LFA at some serious speeds, doesn't matter much, there'll be more comparisons.

05RollaXRS

I looked at the video many times and it looks like Kinosheita started in 2nd gear from a very low speed roll. He probably turned TRAC system off completely and did not want the car to spin.

From a rolling start, if he did not start in a taller gear, no doubt LFA should have pulled immediately. Since GTR has 400 lbs more weight and turbo lag to worry about. It also shows what I have been saying from the start that LFA should have had high-grip tires (not necessarily R compounds) to put all that power down effectively. GTR despite being AWD comes with high-grip big-block tires, low grooves with super-slick outer shoulders (Dunlop GT Maxx 600 DSST).

The RE70 Potenza tires on Nurburgring edition LFA should have been the base standard tires available on the LFA.


Watch from a very low 2000 rpm@ 8 mph in 1st gear, how fast it revs up to 9500 rpm:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9J_i69XmXg

Now watch at 1:00 both cars taking off. LFA is clearly starting off in 2nd gear

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur22Wk7SMU4

motohide

That would be me I suppose?

05RollaXRS

I hope we can get a summarized translation of their thoughts, comments, impressions of the cars and how they compare.

motohide

In a general summary conversation at the end, everyone basically agrees that today's ultra-exotics are all really great cars. Durable, reliable, well mannered, and are fine examples of the marques they represent. Without harsh wording, each has its attributes, flavors, and missions for the brands and carry very different characters. However, in a field of cars like these, one can't really compare them on objective notes. They all perform as expected and advertised. They appreciate the selection of era like this, when all the cars are so well positioned and none without ill faults, which was not always the case in ages of the past.

If I may add to this...

Best Motoring has been creating video production for the enthusiasts and not for the general audience since 1987, and as such, has developed language and evaluated cars on intrinsic values of construction, behaviors, build and designs, and historical adherence, among many others. The audience must understand that Best Motoring has gone well beyond the simple numerical representations of performance, and tagging cars in order of raw data, as most general buyers and shallow enthusiasts understand this sort of comparison. It's not. They converse based on much more than 1-400m acceleration, and Tsukuba Lap times. Kurosawa has always been a Bridgestone tire testing engineer with more laps on Nurburgring than most German drivers, all of the other casters have varying degree of automotive top tier racing and manufacturer design team experience under their belt as well as deep and competitive automotive journalism. In fact, many rate Keiichi Tsuchiya highly but among the staff at Best Motoring, he is one of the most focused edged and not as well rounded despite the massive popularity he has gained as spokesman and creator of D1 and Ikaten under SunPros.

What I am trying to say is the whole coverage of LFA here among other cars, in this episode, the raw performance figures, and minute features of the cars are ultimately not the focus. It really doesn't matter that LFA was 0.7 seconds slower in the straights, nor that one car was well ahead, or even the fact that drivers made mistakes or drove within some safety margins that prevented it from posting some fraction of a second faster lap.

What was important and they keep speaking of over and over, in this episode is that the LFA is a fine vehicle like no other, than a Toyota, and that its true form and appreciation is in the fine balance, utter exotic machinery put together in such form, and all tamed with Lexus's attitiude of "omotenashi" a word reserved without direct translation, representing something like "hospitality, as in the state of deep conscious appreciation for its customers, flowing in the blood from the moment you wake up each day, through design process, building, and presenting, as well as caring..." But extending this to the super exotic category of cars, where such was never the rule. Missing from this LFA is the utter compromise becasue of power or stratosphereic character. It was accepted before, a car like this to be rude, sinful, chaotic, irrational, perky, or dysfunctional in some ways to be at this speed and capacity. Toyota has re-defined it for this segment, and is a car that has none of the compromises and one need not fear, sweat, or endure. One can jump in, and situate comfortably, and have the car speed at stratospheric performance levels, but in expected, managable, and predicatable state of hospitality and "omotenashi". In that sense, it is unlike any other car in the world.

Also, GTR was praised for its sheer capability that defies traditional physics, and bests speeds and laps, and stability of many cars in higher price category and historical development, yet at the price of under 1,000,000 JPN. For simple raw objective data, this is still very impressive, if not having the refinement of merits as design of the bare chassis, which is much like any other car, only modern technology gadgets installed and tuned in harmony allows the car to perform at this level. But like Kurosawa says in the first segment of the GTR 2010/2011 model driving impression, GTR still has much of the inherent weakness of having to be AWD to coax such performance out of such large and non-optimized coupe, which is very different from a race or pure sports car.

There's other ideas and values discussed in this video, but I'll leave it at that. No one complained about lack of anything in the Final Battle, and all just exchanged with enthusiasm, why any of these cars are in fact a great choice for a driving enthusiast.

And that most of the conversation taking place here, such as launch control this or something being turn on or off... was not really a point of the whole video in focus. I'll go review it again though and pick up more finer 'objective' items, specs, and timing and situations, sometime. For now I'll just leave this as food for thought and further discussion.


< did that make any sense?>

TF109B

I've noticed that in previous BM episodes. They don't usually judge one car better than the rest, but take points from every car and explain what they do. It's definitely entertaining, but like I said before, it shouldn't be looked at as a definitive bar for performance of the cars. Driver skills, mistakes, tires etc. make all of that stuff kinda variable.

motohide

Exactly, what they do try to convey to the audience is the intrinsic chemistry of tactile senses, visual, audio, and other sensory interactions of human with machines, and give you the more insightful meaning to owning and driving these cars. This so you can make your own judgments without needing to base them on the catalog specs and pure fundamentals of numerical data. Lancer Evolution, GTR, LFA, 911 Carrera, Corvette all put down decent and similar numbers, but feel like all are from a different world.

IF numbers were the only thing important to performance cars, a Corvette will be the KING of value leader. BM has noted that and even rated the ZR1 something very good, in terms of overall package as a car. Defining what America does best, putting basic platform together in simple inexpensive format, and calibrating it till it just boasts the best catalog numbers in the most rated categories. And it has been the primary way of marketing the Corvette all these years.

07grIS350

That's exactly what I was looking for from BM, the commentary part. This sounds just like an echo of the words of the pros at Lexus Driver Training. I think this is why they are drawing a different group of customers.

05RollaXRS

Thanks so much for all the effort you put into writing your impressions about their comments.

flipside909

Moto the wordsmith! Thanks for chiming in!

motohide

No problem guys!
I do what I can out of enthusiasm!!

Upon revisting the video, here are some of the comments made in the latter Supercar battle scenes.

These are my translation within what I feel "in context" of what they were trying to convey, but may not be accurate in terms of word for word order and direct translations.

"While the GTR had to rely on the launch control to get ahead of the pack at the start, the heavy coupe performed amazingly well among its competition. Notable was the sheer power but not limited to it, as the GTR behaved very predictably with tenacity at amazing rates. Especially in the sections of 180R corner at Fuji that requires a accelerating force combined with high lateral G forces, the car exhibited stability that amazed us all. In comparison, the Corvette lacked the finesse in dealing with the combined chassis loads even though the Corvette was very capable in steady-state cornering, and acceleration in separate individual states."

"The LFA was raced with both traction control and stability assist turned ON, and together it provided a wide margin of stable tractability. Previous laps before qualifying, we did with both OFF, TRACTION ON/Stability OFF, and vice versa and did not result in the overall improvement of laps, only that with the systems off, on a high speed track like Fuji, the driver had to pay much more attention to wild transitions that would keep things a handful to manage. Despite the peaky nature of chassis such as the LFA with mid-front layout and ultralight carbon frame, the LFA in pure form without assist was very predictable however, and exhibited all the responses that an experienced driver would expect. With the systems turned on, the car only became sweeter and easier, allowing you to relax in various stages of the track and enjoy the magnificent sounds and utter stable manners. On the tight chicane at the end of the back straight, there was a tendency to under-steer a bit when the turn in was initiated without enough braking, but in exchange the stability control managed to allow the car to easily get back on line with RWD platform's advantage of not carrying any driving load of mechanical forces, and quickly redirected the car into the second apex at will. You can see this in effect when the Porsche 911 GT2RS had dove into the inside line for almost sure overtake, yet the LFA managed to secure an outside line to stay with the GT2RS side by side, and denied the overtake by closing the line into the second apex of the chicane after the 180R. This is something of a trait usually reserved for FR layout balanced perfectly, which the LFA is pretty close to that perfection."

"The Corvette ZR1 is a sheer rocket when it comes to straight-line acceleration, the car reached 276km/h as we passed the Bridgestone Bridge on the straight just before the massive braking zones, and almost doubted if the car can actually slow enough to get around turn one. KT jokingly said, if the GTR is a twin turbo, the Corvette feels like it has four! Timing of each shift was so busy using a standard clutch that it really needs LESS gears or paddle shifter!!"

"The LFA deserves credit in that in all contortion and loads, low-stability difficulties of attitudes and sheer freaky nature of what FUJI throws on cars at these speeds, the LFA simply cooked all the tricky sections as master chef connecting a dish. Drivers can trust it to go further and the car will show you what not to do, by gently allowing you to correct without fear. Within a few laps, all of us got enough feedback by pushing beyond the ideal, and found where it is happiest. And with that knowledge, each lap just becomes better and better for most drivers. It is a spectacular car in that respect, and unlike other hard-edged cars in this field, the LFA is the car suited for learning, at all levels."

"LFA might be, the BEST sounding production car engine, in the WORLD"

"Nissan GTR (R35), has evolved from 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and now 2011... each step seeming to improve on something most of us thought was not possible. Yes it still is a big heavy car with AWD and quirks, but what it puts down on asphalt as performance, is something of a miracle. While the car may not improve on speeds and specs each edition, the precision and comfort levels keep improving each year. The newest 2011, with the ($45,000) premium option of EGOIST package, the chassis is even more poised for comfort, while losing none of the speed, and even improving precise feel of the car in tighter sections"

"Porsche 911 GT2RS in tradition of Porsche, raises the same excellent handling character to another level. Being the most simple of the cars here, it still managed to stay within the pack, right down to the last lap. The braking forces and acceleration forces are its forte, and thus one must always be aware that this car needs to be driven in a unique way which is the traits needed for any Porsche Meister"

"Corvette ZR1 changed the way I see American sports cars. It is no longer cheap in feel, and handling characteristics are still unique but isn't really something you can ridicule anymore. It is world class in every right, without losing its identity, something they should be proud."

"The prancing horse Ferrari 360 and 430 has always displayed a wild, razor edge handling, making the drivers very careful and alert in the past on FUJI. Notably the front traction sometimes surprisingly lacking, it was always a car you steered with the rear end, despite the eager tendencies to swap front to tail for diving too eagerly. This F430 has been reworked by RSD tamed it somewhat, and reducing radius corners became fun, even for a car like the F430."

motohide

"The LFA brakes got better on the second lap as carbon rotor system got up to ideal temperatures. That's something we experience very rarely at Fuji on a production car, proving again, that this is no ordinary car." -K