Despite reports of its demise, a vehicle which appears to be the Lexus LFA Roadster has made a surprise appearance during the Tokyo Auto Salon today.
A previous report from Car magazine said Toyota decided to cancel development of the LFA Roadster due to the turbulent market conditions, and instead decided to focus energies on a new sports car program speculated to be a Supra revival.
During the D1GP Kick Off Drift event outside the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba, the LFA surprised the crowd doing a few brief drifts before coming to a rest.
Although, the highly excited MC almost drowns out the amazing sound of the V10 engine, we can hear just enough to know that the vehicle is a real LFA. Whether its an official Lexus prototype or a one-off custom job, we're not sure.
However, for better or for worse, there is a cumbersome looking roll bar just behind the head rests extending the width of the vehicle. This leads us to believe this is a privately owned custom job.
Certainly Toyota would have opted to use a cleaner setup with tensioned roll bars that suddenly shoot up in the case of a rollover. However, since this LFA was not structurally designed to be a convertible, the owner of this LFA sacrificed looks and used a solid roll bar instead to help give lateral stability to the structure without a roof.
What do you think?
