November 5, 2010
Paul Rohovsky – Lexus
Adam Carolla and the Professor Sandy Ganz brings a Lexus heavy hitter for this episode. This includes the Lexus LFA as well as Paul Rohovsky, the National Manager of Advanced Business Development. What does that all mean? Discussion on the evolution of the Lexus LFA as well as the usual smack talk. We check out the car and Adam and Paul do a quick lap around the shop. The professor picks up with this weeks tech segment ‘Tool of the week’.
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Show Links
Pictures of tools are on page 2 of the image gallery
Nutsert Kit from Aircraft Spruce
Nibbler Tool from Klein Tools
Image Gallery
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Episode Videos
Lexus LFA at the Shop
Adam’s Quick Test Drive
Most of Toyota’s high performance heads/engines have been designed by Yamaha (See the R, M, and JZ engines for instance). To think that most automakers don’t farm stuff like this out all the time is just stupid. The older SHO gets Yamaha heads, an Allison transmission goes into a GMC, a Cummins diesel goes into a Dodge, but when Toyota does it it’s a sin? Especially when they’ve been doing it since their first supercar the 2000GT (the 3M motor had Yamaha heads in 1966). Most of these large car companies are just integrators that produce specs and pay for most of their parts/subassemblies to be designed and built by suppliers.
Speaking of history, the purpose of the LFA is the same as the 2000GT I mentioned. They were both meant to be high performance R&D test beds. They both were complex and costly to produce (Toyota lost money on every 2000GT produced and I’m sure they’re losing money on each LFA), but that is the purpose of these cars. They are both the result of Loss Leader marketing to build image and develop technology. Yes it’s crazy expensive, but they’re still losing money. You can’t compare these cars to production cars because they weren’t produced with production mentality, or even to make money. They would not have been built, or the technology developed, otherwise.
Japanese automakers have been producing performance cars since the 60’s. They’re never going to have more history than the Europeans because they started later. At 50 years, though, they’re not exactly new to the scene and it’s narrowminded to think so. It’s very sad that a single generation of Civics with coffee can mufflers and front wheel drive cars with rear wings completely overshadow the rest of the accomplishments the Japanese auto industry has made.