You've probably been bewildered by how much attention one car from a previously maligned automaker is getting on this and other enthusiast sites. But the attention we've paid pales in comparison to the attention to technical detail Toyota's displayed in the design and construction of the LFA. The car's gestation has taken nearly a decade not because the program had problems or limited resources, but because Toyota decided to design and build nearly every element of the LFA, its first ever supercar, in-house. Where most companies — Bugatti, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche included — contract out things like gearboxes and the design and construction of carbon fiber components, Lexus chose to teach itself how to make those things better than anyone else, then build its own tools in order to make them.

Take the carbon fiber, for instance. To make the LFA's, Toyota created one of only two circular looms in the entire world, then used it to simultaneously weave one tube of carbon inside another. They built this system just to make the A-pillars on the car.