The Lexus LFR seems as if it was vaporware all along—as if some part of a misdirection campaign. But if you had the Lexus LFA returning as an EV in the future (And it looks like we did!) then you just hit a Bingo.
The Lexus LFA Concept debuted just outside Fuji, Japan on Wednesday at Toyota’s Woven City complex alongside the Toyota GR GT and Toyota GR GT3.
If the LFA Concept looks familiar that’s because it should, and it is. The car debuting is the very same Lexus Sport Concept that was revealed in August during 2025 Monterey car week. The car that debuted in California still hid its interior; that came during the Sport Concept’s second debut in November at the Japan Mobility Show.
Now the very same concept has morphed, but only in name. Toyota and Lexus CEO Akio Toyoda debuted the LFA Concept alongside its new race car and street-legal race-car derived siblings. But few extra details have been provided.
The LFA Concept has been confirmed as an electric car that is said to explore the potential of a battery electric vehicle sports car. That sounds like prep talk for get prepared for the LFA to debut in the coming years as an EV flagship.
This was further reinforced by Toyoda himself who said, “certain car-making techniques and skills must be preserved and passed on to the next generation. The Lexus LFA Concept is a BEV sports car concept model being developed alongside TOYOTA Gazoo Racing’s GR GT and GR GT3. In the footsteps of the Toyota 2000GT and Lexus LFA, the Lexus LFA Concept embodies ‘Toyota’s Shikinen Sengu’ for preserving and passing down techniques and skills from car -making veterans and, based on the aspirations of those veterans.”
Toyoda went on to say that the new LFA Concept “not only passes on such techniques and skills to the younger generation but also evolves them.”
The LFA Concept has been confirmed as sharing its structure with the Toyota GR GT, which means it’s an aluminum frame with double wishbone front and rear suspension design. With a low seating position, that would mean Lexus would likely be unable to have a flat battery pack be part of the structure itself. A more likely design would be to configure the batteries down the spine of the vehicle and into a T configuration behind the two occupants where the GR GT’s transaxle would normally sit (a similar configuration is used on the Maserati GranCabrio Folgore). It’s possible the production variant of the LFA Concept will be the first vehicle to use Toyota’s new solid-state batteries.
As for the LFR name? It’s unclear what that was all about. Lexus trademarked the nameplate in 2022. Maybe it was misdirection or maybe it was planned and Toyota just isn’t ready to let go of the LFA quite yet.
Lexus provided The Drive travel and lodging to bring you this first-hand report