Now Hear This! Lexus LFA Takes on a Porsche Carrera GT and a Pair of Audi’s in the Best-Sounding Drag Race Ever
Speed and sound. The Lexus LFA has plenty of both. But is it enough to beat the legendary Porsche and a highly modified Audi?
What more can be said about the Lexus LFA? It is the first/only/best supercar Lexus has ever made to date. It looks like nothing else on the road. And it might be the best-sounding road car that has ever been created by man. If you could only hear one sound for the rest of your life, an LFA screaming towards redline would be a good choice. But the Porsche Carrera GT is no slouch either with its even more powerful V10 engine. And Audi has a car with half the cylinders but all the attitude in the RS3. Can the more than a decade old Lexus compete with the newest offering from Audi? More interesting is can it keep up with a 30-year-old Audi that is boosted to within an inch of its life?
We get some insight into these questions thanks to Jason Cammisa and a video recently posted on the Hagerty YouTube channel. In this video Cammisa pits the LFA against the Carrera GT, a 2023 Audi RS3, and a 1991 Audi 200 modified to produce over 800 horsepower. The results are surprising. Or perhaps they are not that surprising after all when you really think about it. Just how good is the LFA?
Audi Race
The LFA is first raced against the new Audi RS3 and the ridiculously modified Audi 200. The Audi 200 wins by a wide margin. But consider this. The Lexus will run drag races like this all day long. It will then drive you to a nice dinner, or even across the country if you so desire. How reliable do you think a 1991 Audi being fed 26 pounds of boost will be? The Audi RS3 is more interesting as it trips the timer at 11.8 seconds. That is dead even with the LFA. But, the LFA has a single clutch automatic whereas the Audi has a dual clutch. Also, the Audi has excellent launch control and AWD that make it a rocket off the line. But the LFA gains quickly after the launch advantage gained by the Audi. By the quarter mile the LFA is going 7 mph faster.
So, any race longer than a quarter mile will be won by the Lexus. Also, even though it is not done in this video the Lexus LFA would likely win any roll race against the RS3. The LFA goes from 60 to 100 mph a full second quicker than the RS3. That is a massive difference that means that once the cars are rolling the Lexus will absolutely walk the RS3.
The Big Gun
Picking on a tiny Audi is one thing. But the LFA is a supercar and really should be compared to other supercars. One of the best this century is the Porsche Carrera GT. The Porsche is several years older than the Lexus, but Porsche equipped it with a screaming V10 engine. And that engine produces significantly more power, and the Porsche is over 400 pound lighter. Predictably the Porsche wins the drag race by a sizable margin as it completes the quarter mile in 11.2 seconds compared to 11.8 for the Lexus. And the Porsche traps at 132 mph compared to 124 for the Lexus so the Lexus won’t be reeling in the Porsche at any point.
Speed Isn’t Everything
The Porsche is quicker, but the Lexus is not slow. How much faster can you really drive on the streets anyway? And the Carrera GT is not exactly easy to handle. Many have reported how tricky the car is to drive quickly. And although rotted tires played a role it was in a Carrera GT that Paul Walker was killed. Is that worth it for a couple tenths in the quarter mile? There is no question that the Carrera GT sounds terrific. But if any car could sound better, it would be the LFA. With electrification quickly coming to the car world it is likely that there will never again be a car that sounds as incredible as an LFA. And despite what some say, the sound a car makes matters.
It may not have crossed the finish line first in the drag races. But there can be no question about the place in history the LFA holds. It will continue to be looked back on as one of the greatest supercars ever created by any auto manufacturer.
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