Lexus LF-LC Spied From the Front
The insanely sexy Lexus LF-LC has been on our radars since the day it was introduced as a concept more than three years ago. It wasn’t a secret that this car would spawn a production version, but despite the high profile of this car, we haven’t seen or heard anything about it that was substantial or concrete. That all changed when Matt Farah of The Smoking Tire took some spy shots of the new car a few days ago. Sadly, all he was able to get photos of was the rear of the car. Now, thanks to the team at Steering News, we have a shot of the nose of this new luxury supercar, and it might tell us more than you expect.
Firstly, if you compare it to the original concept, it has lost some of its more wild features like the sunken LED headlight pod things, and the overall shape has been softened a bit. The grille has also been changed from a standard honeycomb material to an expanding mesh that is closer to what we see on the RC F. The most interesting detail though may be found just above that grille. There is a good gap present on this car that looks almost identical to that found on the incredible LFA. This was not present on the concept LF-LC, and it hasn’t been seen on any car since the LFA.
Let me go wild and speculate for just a moment. What if Toyota never wanted to build the LF-LC and has been using that car as a smokescreen to hide development of a new LFA? If that is wrong, and Lexus is going to call this car the LF-LC, perhaps they have dumped the turbocharged V8 of the concept car in favor of the LFA’s V10 engine. It would make sense from a cost perspective. Engineering an entirely new engine for the LF-LC will cost quite a large amount of money, but the V10 is already done and just needs to be tuned for the new car. The LFA cost Lexus a lot of money to make, and by reusing the V10 engine in a new car, they can attempt to recoup some of those costs.
Yes, I am aware that most rumors are pointing to the same 5.0-liter V8 found in the RC F making its way into the LF-LC with a potential hybrid system to boost power, but let a man dream, will ya?
Big hat tip to Steering News for the tip!
