Orange Rush

Two doors, carbon fibre bits and a V8 stuffed under the hood. This Lexus sounds truly promising. Can you live with one though?

- Debabrata Sarkar

It took engineers at Lexus nine years to put together their first-ever sportscar, the LF-A. They first built it in aluminium and sort of went, ‘nah’, and decided to redo it in carbon fibre. It was put on a diet and whatever weight could not be done away with, was placed to lower the c of g and improve handling. They even fitted it with a gaming console because analogue dials couldn’t keep up with what the mad V10 did under the hood. On the outside, special bits of aero were designed to channel air efficiently and a massive wing planted to help with the actual handling of the car. So, when Lexus called and said they had a special two-door sportscar that they would like to hand me the keys to, you can imagine the images that went through my head.

Of course, I knew it wasn’t going to be one of the 500 LF-As, but the RC-F. A quick browse on the internet told me that it looked pretty spectacular, yes; lots of wedged shapes, gills and slashes. But then, as my colleague drove it up the porch at the hotel, I could not have been less prepared for its arrival. If you think the shocking orange is loud, look closer, and you may spot the gold flakes in the mix. If that wasn’t enough, the chaps at Lexus’ India office decided to slap on every option in the book. That, of course, includes a whole lot of carbon fibre – the hood, roof and the rear wing, get the weave pattern and saves 10 kilograms of weight; the seats can be heated or cooled and the steering wheel can be warmed up too. They even bunged in a Mark & Levinson sound system along with a 10.3-inch screen (standard is 7-inch screen). There are also the 19-inch alloys and one half of the car’s lights that sign off with an ‘L’, presumably for Lexus. There’s so much going on that the massive front spindle grille, that characterises almost all Lexus cars now, looks almost understated.