Will The Best Supercar Please Stand Up? Lexus LF-A And Mercedes SLS Duke It Out In Side By Side Test

teh secks

The less expensive Benz wins. Congrads M/B.

With an uglier face than BMW 6, almost ass-less, and engine every other AMG shares, MB still win the heart of a writer who loves a "more relaxed big-bore V8". So it will also beat Ferrari as the latter's V8 is a tiny 4.3L and even less torque than LFA! Good job MB! :)

R U kidding me regarding the Benz?

Have you seen the LF-A commercial?

Lexus wins this hands down. The LFA brings "sexy" back to Lexus and no wonder nearly all examples are spoken for. If the GTR is "Godzilla" then the LFA is surely the next best Japanese icon- the Samurai.....

Right on, BondMI6! Any idiot should be able to tell which car is better from watching a Lexus commercial. Why are these fools driving the cars?

So we should judge a car by the fact that an amplified microphone can smash a wine glass???. I bet I can put a Yugo in front of that mic and turn up the mic and it will smash the glass too!

I thought the Lexus was an Audi on that commercial...

there's no bringing sexy back to lexus--the brand has never had it. and given that the LFA costs double the benz, this is a pathetic commentary on lexus.

"Any idiot should be able to tell which car is better from watching a Lexus commercial."

wow, you boys really are drinking the lexus kool aid. their MARKETING says so! it must be the best!

LFA FTW! The jerkiness was intentional... Lexus rejected the twin-clutch decision after trying one from VW in one of their LFA prototypes, complaining that it was too unengaged. What do these auto critics want from Lexus?

Maybe the next-generation SC will offer the softer feeling of a gran tourer, but I doubt that'll be praised either.

"The jerkiness was intentional"

Yes I'm sure that what everybody looks for in $375,000 Lexus lack of refinement. Lets face it this is a car that spent far to long in R&D and was engineered to start with the SMG transmission, time and the automotive industry moved on the LFA didn't. BMW and Ferrari the fore-runner in SMG transmission have dump them and replace them with the faster, smoother and more advanced DSG trans. The SMG is a boat anchor but if Toyota was to replace it, it would have taken another 3-4 years of R&D making it more obsolete.

lol i hate both.

Let the flame war begin...

MB wins over the celica with a body kit.

I could not agree with you more, especially when they said they started from the ground up. It looks like a celica on roids.

I didn't even need to read the article to know who won....They talk about the week transmission and poor engine response which is a hallmark of Lexus. lol the Lexus fanboys said this car was such a good value

Two supercars designed for two different buyer demographics. Both cannot please everyone out there - but are good for what they are.

Leave it at that.

No Comment

Let's see here, a Mercedes Benz or a Special Toyota? I will go with the SLS with the cool doors!

All the Dr. Z lovers are smokin' the MB crack pipe tooooo hard.....

Yes the SLS is nice and is one of my favorite Benzo's but it's not the LFA.

"handicapped by the need to rev its melodious engine
to a plateau where it burns even more fuel than the much more relaxed bigger-bore V8."

Huh? What kind of car enthusiasts are they to complain about a high-revving track-perfect V10 engine? Unlike the souped up SL-Class made for highway-cruising poseurs, the LFA is born on the track, for the track, but just happens to also have a luxurious interior and impeccable build quality to go with it.

I hope you realize the analogy was there only to balance out the "celica with a body kit" comment.

Which would you want to own in 20, 30 or 40 years? .... No contest - the future classic - Benz.

Actually for holding value the LF-A would be a better bet, based on limited production.

And exclusivity. If i could afford either sign me up for the BMW

In 20, 30, 40 years, I bet the LF-A would be more valuable. Why? It's more rare.

Rarity doesn't necessarily mean value. The vector super cars are certainly rare, and they to sold out. But they certainly didn't hold their value.

simple rarity does not create value for collector cars...great design that stands the test of time, passion and, yes, hallmark performance do. unfortunately, the LFA may perform well--but it's painfully ugly to behold and will be grown even more awkward with age.

Im not a huge fan of the lexus either but dont kid yourself rareity is a huge factor when collecting anything.

But from looks alone, Benz wins hands down.

theoptimistic

"was engineered to start with the SMG transmission, time and the automotive industry moved on the LFA didn't"

I don't think that Lexus is behind in gearbox technology as they have proven by coming up first with the 8 speed automatic transmission that was praised by almost all magazines and some magazines even said it is better than dual clutch gearboxes and now we are seeing it being adopted by all from Porsche to BMW to Audi. So i believe this particular specially designed for LFA gearbox is intentional.

Also i love the styling of LFA inside out. To me SLS looks like a Z8, Z4, Viper...etc like design, not a fan of this type of design. Also would love to see both both cars tested on track and their laptimes.

JUGNU

Seen Bill Guerin from the penguins SLS tonight in Manhattan, it was black and looked really good so much better in person.

Biased EURO review, a need to rev the engine? .6 seconds from 0-9000rpm, and they need to 'rev' the engine? The LFA isn't an S2000. They complained about the transmission, but failed to mention the car has been thoroughly trashed for more than 5000 miles and is a pre-production prototype with the first iteration of gearing. So lets do the math, we should compare an unfinished prototype to a production SLS? How fair of them.

Another excerpt- when they said it struggled on uphill tight turns and the front seemed to struggle for grip? That's funny, every other publication said the LFA does just fine and it's turn in is crisp and exiting from corners is a much more linear and easier task because of the high red line. Being able to take advantage of it you can blast out of turns without worrying of the back end twitching out of control. Maybe if they actually drove for grip instead of trying to slide the damn thing around they'd realize that.

SLS weighs in at 3600lbs. but it can hold more G through a corner than the LFA? That's a laugh as well, according to motortrend the LFA pulls a good 1.05G without skipping a beat. That's equal to the 911 GT3 RS. No way the SLS could hang with that being how big it is. Me thinks if they actually had a PRODUCTION LFA, that wasn't beat up for the past 6 months in numerous car magazines and shows like Top Gear, it would spank the SLS and it's speed-boat front end.

try revving the engine when it's in gear, I promise you it won't be 0.6s flat, you'll just feel a constant torque-less pull up to 9000rpm. In the standard driving rpm range the LFA would pull like a 350hp car.

"according to motortrend the LFA pulls a good 1.05G without skipping a beat."

according to motortrend it required non street legal tires to pull that.

deboost me all you want, the facts are on motortrend.com and caranddriver.com and roadandtrack.com go there and look for yourselves. I'm not saying the SLS is bad, but the LFA is better. Lets test supercars on the road and say the LFA doesn't handle well. When it's designed to be on the track, and the car they have has been thrown around the track for the past 6 months. Yeah that's smart, take your race car that's not even a production model and compare it to a brand new SLS. It's pathetic and biased. I could go out and purchase a Japanese magazine and come to a whole different conclusion.

My verdict could be, the SLS's transmission is uninvolving and feels like a video game (which this magazine complained about before with dual clutch transmissions). It's front end is 5 feet long and it feels like your navigating the car from the back seat. Turn in isn't as precise as the LFA because of the readjustments you have to make since you sit so far back. The engine is too torquey and doesn't want to rev. Above 7000rpm it's all for show, and no for go. Peak torque arrives too early to get clean exits out of turns.

The GTR is a boat as well, 3800lbs.? The amazing thing about Japanese engineering is it handles better than ferraris and lamborghini's 3 times it's cost with LESS HP and MORE weight. But to compare the GTR to the LFA is like comparing your casio to a citizen quartz watch. Two totally different types, the only thing in common is the watches tell time, and these cars go fast.

freshseth, that's the thing. You lexus fanboy's don't want to compare the LFA to the Mclaren MP4-12C of Ferrari F458 which are true track cars as well. Your excuse is that the LFA is more of a luxury car hahaha.

I'm pretty sure the California is Ferrari's econo car Badgewhore.

according to car & driver it had the same performance on it's street legal tires, according to Road and Track they achieved 1.04G on it's street legal tires. Motortrend didn't have street legal tires because the LFA they had was a 'junker' it also weighed over 3500lbs. So with that said, and with the production LFA weighing between 3263 and 3450lbs. we can see it's on the heavy side, but still beats out the GTR without launch control. No LFA on the road or in tests is a production model. Every single one is pre-production prototype. Production doesn't start until 2011 and the transmission is still going through upgrades to finalize the 'feel' of the shifts in each gear mode.

Do some research and get out from under your euro-rock.

The test is little unfair as it is done only on city roads. 9000 rpm LFA would not be so much suited in a city compare to more BHP and torque at lower rpm SLS and so we see the magazine complaining about LFA's high rpm. They must have included both city roads and tracks to balance the test as these are Supercars and then give a verdict.
Waiting for EVO magazine's test of LFA vs SLS.

JUGNU

I would be happy with my GT-R and 200k in my pocket to buy another GT-R for the wife and a really nice boat!

SLS all the way with MB 100 years pedigree compared to 21 years of crap.

"It's a clash of characters like Suzuki Hyabusa vs BMW K1300 S" - I would have put the Suzuki up against the Kawi ZX14, not a BMW.

German vs Japanese comparo I think is the reference....

I agree with montyz81, GTR looks better and better value therefore I would have the GTR over the fake super celica LF-GOOF anyday.

The battle of the ugly... Which ugly supercar wins? I would pick neither!

I was actually impressed with how the LFA looked in the commercial. But at that price who cares!

i think that if both those cars are parked on the street, the LFA will get more attention only because the sls although an instant classic, is just more unique.,, the sls from angles looked like a more detail oriented sl550..

Ugly and boring german shit can't be compared to Lexus.