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For those of you still harping on the performance/price aspect, I'll copy and paste what I've written elsewhere:
"Let's forget the price for a minute because you could argue that, at certain levels of the marketplace, people don't even look at the price. They just want something that's rare and special. This car is rare and it's rare and very, very special. I don't want to get bogged down in 'Ooh, it's 6 times more than a GT-R.' That's simplistic. Yes, it's not 6 times the car that the GT-R is. Of course it isn't. Nothing is 6 times the car that the GT-R is. A Veyron certainly isn't 12 times the car that the GT-R is. It's not possible to be that.
We've deliberately avoided any talk of the 2011 Lexus LFA's list price of $375,000 until now, because having spent the day (well, four hours) in this car, the price doesn't strike us as especially relevant. That'll sound absurd to many of you, but this car isn't a normal retail proposition, not even in the abnormal reality of Planet Supercar. Just 500 will be made, some 150 of which will go to the United States and only 70 of which are destined for Europe (18 of them to the U.K.). Perhaps the biggest compliment we can pay this Lexus is to say that it doesn't feel like a bad value.
Chances are, most people will never see one, and you shouldn't underestimate the power of this."
--Chris Harris, Evo Magazine
Shane O'Donoghue, contributor to Yahoo autos, Car Enthusiast, and Performance Car Mag:
"Comparisons to similar performing machines are pointless, as we believe that potential buyers have the means to buy whichever they prefer, regardless of logic or value for money.
...if you can spend £300,000 or so on a supercar it's likely that you may have one of each rather than seeing them as competitors."
5th Gear:
"While those [performance] figures are on a par with many supercars, such as the forthcoming Ferrari 458 Italia and McLaren MP4-12C, the Lexus costs a sizable chunk more and, in effect, competes with the likes of the Pagani Zonda and Ferrari 599 GTB - although in that stratosphere we're not so sure buyers look at things that logically."
Is anything patently false or ludicrous about any of that?
Regarding the McLaren, 5 main points:
1) They achieve that car's power by forced induction, which makes it easier to hit the power figure
2) They don't weave the CF in-house, as Lexus have done; they still buy their CF in bulk sheets from external sources
3) They have decades of CF manufacturing experience at their disposal; by comparison, Lexus have basically tooled up from scratch
4) McLaren have made it very clear that cost containment was a major priority from the beginning (while Lexus have made it clear that the LFA is about the driving experience, moreso than the numbers)
5) McLaren are targeting 1000+ units per year (not including other models which will fill out their line); volume means you can amortize the cost over many more units, so the per-unit price should obviously be much lower.
As for the Ferrari 458, that is being built off of experience and tooling already existing from the 430 which likewise benefitted from 360 development; LFA is from the ground up. Aluminum vs CF. Likely production of ~10k units as previous V8 models. Not to mention it can be argued that V8 Ferraris (and their hypercars) are priced below true market value anyway.
Playing the performance/price card is a fool's game in any world where the ZR1 or ACR exist.
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