Toyota to Bring Numerous Race Cars at Goodwood Including a 700HP Celica GT4-X and the Lexus LF-A

At next month's Goodwood Festival of Speed that runs from July 3 to 5, Toyota plans to bring a variety of race cars led by the Lexus LF-A that will be making its first appearance on British soil. The V10-powered supercar will be joined by another competition Lexus, the racing IS F that competed along with the LF-A at this year's Nurburgring 24-hour endurance race.

Panasonic Toyota Racing will be back at Goodwood with the TF108, the last F1 Toyota to be designed before FIA introduced its current restrictions on wing sizes and additional aerodynamic elements. Toyota's F1 driver Timo Glock will be present at the event to drive the TF108.

The Toyota Sprint Series will be represented for the first time on the hill climb with the 700HP Fensport Celica GT4-X AWD. Other Toyota cars that will be on show (but won't compete) at the Goodwood event include Alain Prost's Andros Trophy Auris that features a carbon fibre bodywork and a tuned version of the Lexus RX 3.0-litre V6 engine, the Aygo Crazy and iQ Gazoo plus various rally cars such as the Group B Celica Twin-cam Turbo, Celica ST185, Celica GT4 ST205 and the WRC Corolla.

Lexus LF-A V10 Rumored to Debut at '09 Tokyo Show, Production Limited to 500 Units

If we are to believe the latest gossip coming in from the 'Land of the Rising Sun', Lexus is scheduling to reveal the production version of the long-anticipated LF-A supercar at the forthcoming 2009 Tokyo Motor Show that runs from October 23 to November 8. Citing inside sources close to the V10-powered supercar's development team, Japan's Best Car magazine said that the LF-A's production will be limited to a mere 500 units, with 120 of those being allocated to the domestic market with an estimated starting price of around 30 million Yen a piece or about $310,000 US - €220,000 at the current exchange rates.

The price alone places Lexus' V10-powered supercar into an entirely different league than the GT-R as it costs twice as much as the recently launched GT-R V-Spec model (15,750,000 Yen in Japan).

The report goes on to say that aside from the standard model that will most likely bear the GT500 moniker, there's also talk about an even more exclusive version dubbed SS550 where SS stands for Super Sport - that is unless someone decides to make a fuss about the name...

More specifically, the GT500 will be powered by a high-revving 5.0-liter V10 producing an estimated 500HP, while the SS550 is said to get a tweaked version of the V10 with a displacement of 5.5-liters and an output of around 550HP. Both variants feature a front-mid engined layout with a transaxle housing the semi-automatic gearbox and rear-mounted radiators.

When Lexus first unveiled the LF-A Coupe concept at the 2005 Detroit motor show (followed by a Roadster study at 2008 Detroit show - see photo album below ), the Japanese automaker claimed that its Ferrari-challenging supercar would reach a top speed of around 200mph or 322km/h. But now the word is that thanks to the extensive work on the LF-A's aerodynamics, the supercar will top out closer to 220mph or 354km/h.

We remind you that Lexus entered two LF-A prototype models at the 24h of Nurburgring endurance race, with one of those cars ending up in flames - see the video here.

Via: Best Car

VIDEO: Lexus LF-A V10 Supercar Proves Too Hot for the Nurburgring...

Damn that Youtube; you can't have an unfortunate moment these days without someone uploading a video and circulating it around the web for the entire world to see. Lexus' "Moment of Zen" came during this past weekend's Nurburgring 24-hour endurance race when one of the two participating V10-powered LF-A sportscars caught on fire. If you dying to see what happened out of pure interest (or boredom, doesn't matter) hit the jump to watch the video.

Via: Egmcartech

Lexus Reveals LF-A 500HP V10 that will Race at the 24h of Nurburgring!

Even though we have yet to see the production model of the Lexus LF-A study that has been previewed in both coupe and roadster forms in the past, the Japanese automaker decided to put its long anticipated (and overdue...) supercar to the ultimate test by entering two race-spec versions at this weekend's Nurburgring 24-hour endurance race. Seen here for the first time in race livery, the 200mph+ (321km/h) LF-A sportscars are powered by a front-mid mounted V10 engine producing 500HP. The LF-As will be entered by Gazoo Racing, which from what we learned, is a Japanese market, Toyota-owned, e-commence website that has its own racing team.

The team that will tackle the 'Green Hell' will be made up of a combination of professional drivers, Toyota test drivers, dealers and a pilot that Lexus refers to as "Morizo" who is none other than Toyota's soon-to-be CEO Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the firm's founder.

According to a previous release from Lexus, the knowledge gained from the endurance race will be fed back to engineering teams to assist with further development of the production LF-A.