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People group gift a lot of stuff at eDivvy.com for birthdays, Christmas, retirement parties, boss’s appreciation, teacher appreciations, weddings and baby showers - gifts such as the Apple iPod Touch, Macbook Pro, digital cameras, baby strollers, VISA gift cards, or gift cards for experience adventures to name a few.

But what if a bunch of your buddies pitched in and group gifted a CAR? Now that would be really cool! Well, we haven’t had a car group gifted yet at eDivvy.com, but we can dream, and one car we could dream about is the Lexus LFA.

We got invited to ride along in one last week – read on…

Last week my car enthusiast friend and I had the pleasure of participating in a ride along with NASCAR race driver Scott Pruett. The ride along was organized by Lexus as a way to gauge the initial interest in Lexus’ much anticipated supercar – the LFA. Built from the ground up, the LFA boasts a 4.8L V10 engine generating 552 HP, with a 202 mph top track speed, and 3.6 second 0-60 second time. Currently only 3 exist in the world, but Lexus is taking an interest list, and isn’t planning on delivering any of the 500 units it plans on producing until 2011. Most everyone who knows me, knows that I’m definitely not a car nut, and I tend to get easily motion sick, but this private, limited ride along was definitely a treat! I’ve had the opportunity to ride in several other supercars ranging from the Ferrari 599 to Nissan’s GTR, and I have to say the Lexus LFA is definitely comfy to ride in and well planted zooming at 160 mph. It’s a great looking car, and flies like a bat out of hell, but is it worth the estimated $375,000.00 Lexus is pricing it at? We’ll see once others get to drive it and not just ride along in it.

Ok. So group gifting a Lexus LFA may be bit of a stretch, but there’s certainly a ton of other gifts your friends would certainly appreciate like a new GPS, PC, Mac, iPod, Microsoft Zune, Plasma or LCD TVs, Amazon Kindle, PS3, Xbox, Wii, or SLR Camera. If you haven’t tried out eDivvy.com, we’ve got a promotion running that gives organizers $25.00 (some restrictions apply) and events are completely eDivvy fee free. Save time, social awkwardness, and money trying to out-gift others, and just invite your friends to group gift at eDivvy.com. You’ll certainly be able to get something better when you pool money together than buying something alone. Seriously, a group gifted iPod is definitely better than the socks or that new Blu-ray dvd you were going to buy on your own. Click Here for more info on the promo or just visit eDivvy.com to start group gifting great gifts.

Alright, without further adieu, below are some of the photos we were able to get at the ride along and a link to a vid of the LFA going around the track. These were taken at the California Speedway where we got to go 0 to 160 mph, down to 60-70mph around turns and curves. Also below is a bit from my car enthusiast buddy who wrote a bit about the ride-along experience and his take.

Here's a couple vids:

My car enthusiast friend’s comments about our ride along:

Everyone knows that the LFA has been in existence for quite some time. It has shown it’s duds around the Nurburgring with such frequency, people were starting to wonder if the car was ever going to be produced rather than being complacent “testing”.

With much anticipation, the LFA has finally emerged from its rounds at Fuji Raceway and Nurburgring. As this matte black example is undergoing heavy rotation around the North American show circuit, Lexus is careful not to have one of only three cars in existence fall into the wrong hands. This is where Scott Pruett comes into play. 3 time 24hrs of Daytona overall winner, 2 time IMSA GTO champion, Indy 500 co-rookie of the year, 3 time SCCA Trans-Am Champion, he knows how to drive to win and has the proper credentials… you get the picture. He will be my driver and show me a little LFA attitude.

A firm handshake and a solid smile later, Scott Pruett stands next to me as the Lexus provided photographer snaps away. In matte black, the color may be imposing but the car doesn’t seem to be wildly exotic yet all the Lexus sensible thoughts and design elements are in play. Maybe if the car were orange, it would seem wilder, more exotic.

I slide into the front leather seats which are very comfortable and snug. The door shuts confidently beside me. Scott proceeds to run through some of the basic controls of the car, showing the center display that has a tachometer able to slide from right to left on the Thin Film Transistor (TFT) Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) looking much like a futuristic fighter jet console. The tachometer takes on small number of display styles according to driving format (Sport, Wet, Normal) with the driver able to control the different technical information displayed.

The 4.8 liter V10 developed solely for the LFA by Toyota sounds deeper and tighter than the only V10s I’ve heard (BMW and Lamborghini). The technical specifications boasts the V10 being lighter and more compact than the Lexus 2.5 liter V6 that lies in the IS250. Does that mean I can squeeze a V10 into an IS250? I digress, the point is this compact powerhouse is able to output 552hp in a tighter overall package with greater performance benefits as opposed to the hamster flogging 204hp in the IS250.

Scott redlines the LFA somewhere north of 9000rpm, he grabs the F1 style paddle shifters on the steering wheel and the car goes into the next gear without much drama. There is little emotion and fanfare during a gear change, no abrupt lurches or drama, a simple blip and the car continues at warp speed. Downshifting is the same except the sound of this car blipping the throttle during a change to a lower gear could keep me busy for hours on end. He’s hard on the carbon ceramic brakes, my eyeballs hold onto my sockets for dear life and Scott lifts off the brakes, gives the steering wheel a 90 turn and slams his foot on the throttle. The car shoots ahead and my head presses back into the headrest.

This process occurs through ever turn. My head responds to the high g-forces during braking and acceleration all the way till the LFA comes screaming down the banked straight of the California Speedway at 163 mph. Not bad. Around the infield of the California Speedway again for the second lap and Scott makes no excuses to push the LFA hard into the turns and brakes with enough force to have the rear ceramic brakes smoking when I step out after the end of two laps.

So was this a thrill? Definitely! But this still poses the question of whether Lexus can shake the perception of an automobile manufacturer that can produce a product untouchable by horses and bulls. Will the LFA end up being a very fast and well packaged SC430 or LS430 or will this vehicle really have the proper attitude that will carry it into supercardom? I’ll eagerly await the test drive.

Labels: Edivvy.com, group gift, LFA, promotion