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If you were following us on Twitter @InsideLine_com, you'll know our Audi R8 Road Trip was a blast, culminating with track impressions and acceleration numbers of the exceedingly rare and potent 2012 Audi R8 GT at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California. Only 333 will be built worldwide, with 90 for the U.S.
For those of you who aren't twitterers, a wrapup of the adventure along with R8 GT test numbers can be found after the jump.
Professional racer turned Speed Channel analyst David Hobbs once quipped during a Formula 1 broadcast: "If you Twitter, you must be a twit."
Whether we're twits or not is debatable, but unlike old man Hobbs, we aren't afraid of the occasional tweet. Especially if tweeting allows us to let you in on some of the cool stuff we're doing. Such as driving V8 and V10 Audi R8 Coupes and Spyders from Beverly Hills, California, to Napa Valley, California, ending up at Infineon Raceway where we'll wring out the 2012 Audi R8 GT.
It was Tuesday morning in our nation's capitol, and my business was over and done with. My next gig was a Thursday night meeting in Indianapolis.
One of my travel options consisted of flying back to California for a day and then heading right back to the airport to fly out again. I don't think so.
Alternately, I could take a direct flight to Indy and spend my extra day sightseeing. Maybe, but see what? I was going to be there all weekend anyway.
Or I could drive. Make a road trip out of it. See a little something of the states in between. Perfect. Sign me up.
At first I was going to hire a one-way rental, but then a 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco became available, the one claimed to sip fuel at the miserly rate of 42 mpg on the highway. With some 600 miles of mostly highway driving ahead of me and plenty of time, it was the perfect scenario to try the Eco's fuel economy claim on for size.
Remember our Lexus LF-A Road Trip? Sure you do. Right? Went to Vegas, drag raced a GT-R and a Porsche 911 GT2 RS, hit some mountain roads...let a couple of readers drive....there ya go.
Well, now the recap / wrap-up gallery is live with 99 photos (some of which you've never seen before) and 9 videos. Enjoy.
You'll recall that Auto Observer Senior Editor Bill Visnic was all set to drive from greater Pittsburgh to the 2011 New York Auto Show in an automatic-equipped 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco earlier this week. So how did he do on mpg in the car that's rated 26 city/37 highway/30 combined by the EPA?
"Here are the numbers, 150 miles from my hotel in Manhattan. There's a quarter tank left and average mpg is 30.8.
Most of the Edmunds-Inside Line editorial horde is jetting off to New York for the auto show press days starting tomorrow, but I’m getting there via my preferred transporation: the automobile.
Chevrolet was thoughtful enough to extend a loan of the 2011 Cruze Eco for the 450-mile drive from my home near Pittsburgh, so the challenge seemed natural – can this Eco, which is an automatic, deliver up on its highway fuel-economy number of 37 miles per gallon?
Well, the boys are back from their LFA road trip. What you see above is one of the hardest things they've had to do -- and not hauling heavy luggage with weak arms from hours behind the wheel and days of burger-fueled mayhem and machine guns.
The main participants are still recuperating, but we've got final thoughts, fuel economy numbers and a wrap up video after the jump. Anything you'd still like to know about the 2012 Lexus LFA?
No, not really. I'm not the kind of guy that feels comfortable going bit by bit through a car and telling you exactly what works and what doesn't, and why.
I know a lot of people aren't fond of the LFA's styling, but one thing is for sure: The Super Lexus attracted a ton of attention during our road trip.
We got a lot of this during the 1,000 or so miles we covered in the LFA in the last three days. Smiles, fist pumps, thumbs-ups and waves. We saw it all.
When we were deciding on the plan for our 2012 Lexus LFA road trip, one of the things we absolutely did not want to do was wind up in Las Vegas primping a supercar amongst the Affliction-clad club kids. And one of the things we absolutely wanted to do was hit an open drag night to run the LFA against whatever showed up --- and against a 2012 Nissan GT-R we would make sure showed up.
Unfortunately, the only place holding an open drag night in our area was, yep, you guessed it, Vegas. So we packed the LFA with as much gear as it could carry (loaded up the photo van with the rest) and headed for...sigh...Vegas.
Unfortunately, high winds cancelled the event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and we had to find something else to do that didn't involve casinos, clubs or overpriced restaurants. You've already seen how we blew off some steam after finding out we couldn't go proper racing.
Fortunately, a closed road presented itself and the 2012 Nissan GT-R, dutifully in tow, lined up. AWD twin-turbo V6 vs. RWD NA V10....
The Social Media folks at Inside Line thought it would be a good idea to set up a Tweetup for us and the Lexus LFA at the Fukuburger truck in Las Vegas. We weren't sure what to expect, like if anyone would show up at all. And while it was hard to tell who was there for the awesome burgers (I recommend Number 2, the egg burger), the nearby tatoo parlor or actually for the LFA, everyone was drawn to the Lexus supercar regardless.
We had this plan, you see. Had it all figured out in advance.
After the 2012 Lexus LFA was finished with its date with the dyno at MD Automotive, we'd put it up on one of Mark's gen-u-ine 2-post lifts and have a good long look at the suspension. We'd get great access and you, the readers, would not have to suffer the indignity of seeing a $375,000 Lexus LFA in a compromising position on mere $10 jack stands.
Funny things, plans. They don't always pan out.
Turns out the LFA sits far too low for the lifting pads on Mark's lifts. There's also a brittle-looking carbon sill extension all around the LFA's edges and its underside is masked with a full carbon belly pan that's held on with like a jillion Torx-head fasteners. I thought we were sunk.
And then I spotted what looked like non-skid skateboard deck tape on the main carbon frame rails, four squares of it, just about where you'd expect to find...jack points!
But the LFA wasn't giving up that easy. It was still far too low for Mark's "experienced" floor jack. We ended up driving the left side tires of the LFA onto 2x6 planks to raise the car high enough to slip the jack underneath, at which point we placed a perfect-sized spacer atop the jack to distribute the load across the skateboard tape of one of the reinforced jack points.
Slowly, carefully, we raised it up, listening for creaking, watching for the tiniest of deflections. Nothing. We're good. Time for photographs and arrows.
Tired of the literal shootouts and in the mood for us to get back to cars for a few minutes? Good.
After we'd finished track testing the 2012 Lexus LFA and 2011 Porsche 911 GT2, we took out the testing equipment, headed to the prepped side of the dragstrip and hooked up the tree for some head-to-head drag racing.
The Porsche is saddled with a clutch and six-speed manual while the Lexus has paddles and, essentially, launch control. Power and weight favor the Porsche. Repeatability and technology favor the Lexus. Jacquot and Walton are to-the-hundredth equal. Four races. Who ya got?
![lfa_sunsetrun1[1].jpg](http://blogs.insideline.com/straightline/assets/lfa_sunsetrun1%5B1%5D.jpg)
Even if you're not a big fan of the LFA's purposeful (yet hardly graceful) exterior, the interior is absoutely gorgeous. Alcantara and carbon fiber abound everywhere.
Check it out:
In Vegas with an LFA, it doesn't take a long to degenerate to the basics: Fast cars, red meat and, well,...
Come on, really. If someone gave you a Lexus LFA for 72 hours you'd find a way to do it, too. You know you would. We know you would. The only question is how long it would take to find the right place. And where, exactly, is that place?
Technically, there's no launch control in the Lexus LFA. That doesn't mean they didn't give us a few pointers for how to get the best 0-60 time.
And then we tried a few methods of our own. Jacquot shows you how to do it should you ever end up in an LFA and need to get going very, very quickly.
2012 Lexus LFA vs. 2011 Porsche 911 GT2 RS. What we've got here is approximately $635,000 worth of alphabet soup with a combined 1,172 horsepower. We never thought we'd pit a Lexus against a 911 either, but in the end, while their approaches are worlds apart, these cars are both about going fast -- damn the cost.
The 2011 Porsche 911 GT2 RS is the latest in a decades-long refinement project by Porsche to build the best car the 911 could ever be. And if this isn't the peak, we're scared to see what is. The GT2 RS gets its 620 horsepower from a twin-turbo flat-6 mounted in the rear of the car and hooked to a six-speed manual transmission. This is how a Porsche should be.
Conversely, the 2012 Lexus LFA is in no way what a Lexus should be. Errr, let's rephrase that, it is in no way what Lexus is right now. There's not even a hybrid badge on it. Five-hundred fifty-two horsepower dumps out of a screaming 4.8-liter V10 that sounds barely removed from Toyota's F1 efforts. The transmission is a six-speed auto-clutch manual that, again, sounds and feels race-ready. The LFA doesn't feel like a Lexus, it feels like the future.
So it's the old school against the new school. V10 against flat-6. Turbos against revs and displacement. Porsche against....Lexus?
And there's no shortage of visuals. We lit up the strip for a time tonight. But in the end there's nothing to do in town in one of the world's fastest cars.
You know Glendora Mountain Road. It's been the star of other videos and stories on IL in the past. Well, today we absolutely destroyed it in the LFA. Video after the jump.
Enjoy.
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