That’s all fine and good, but unless we’ve missed our mark, most of our loyal readers aren’t going to be skipping over to the Lexus dealer to pick one of these beasts up any time soon. So what is Lexus trying to achieve with the LFA? Why does a car that’s so unobtainable by the vast majority of the driving population matter to the brand? As it turns out, it may have a huge impact on how the company evolves over the next 10 years.

We’ve seen this pattern of outrageous vehicle design and production in the past. In fact, Lexus seems to be taking a page directly out of Acura’s playbook from the early '90s with the LFA. Way back when, Acura was brand-new on the American scene, and consumers were largely under the impression that the company’s products were nothing more than rebadged Accords. In order to change the public’s perception of the brand, Acura turned out the NSX. The car was a technology laden tribute to just how different Acura could be from both its parent company and its competitors.

Similarly, Lexus has recently found itself awash in a sea of bland luxury cruisers from the likes of Infiniti, Cadillac and Acura. It needed something that would grab eyeballs and have a whole new generation of buyers considering the brand for the first time. It needed a halo vehicle.

The 552-horsepower LFA is the perfect solution, and while most of us will never even see the car in the flesh, odds are we’ll be talking about it around the figurative water cooler.