Faster, angrier Lexus RC F coming

It’s new, hardcore RC F doesn’t hit Aussie roads until early 2015, but Lexus is already planning ways to make it faster.

Speaking to Wheels at the RC F’s launch in New York, chief engineer Yukuhiro Yaguchi confirmed a hotter, even more powerful variant is currently under development.

“We are already thinking about some changes to make for next year,” he said. “We think we could get a little more power out of it.”

With “more than” 330kW on tap – official power figures are under embargo until 1pm Friday – the RC F is officially the most powerful V8 Lexus has ever produced. But Yaguchi said the upgrades aren’t just designed to give the RC F more grunt.

“It’s to make the car more fun to drive,” he said. “If you make the car go too fast then a human being won’t be able to catch up with it. It’s more about accessible performance for more people to enjoy the car regularly.”

Pitched to take on the new BMW M4 and upcoming Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG and Audi RS5, Yaguchi confirmed the RC F, which replaces the iconic Lexus LFA as the brand’s performance flagship, will undergo continual development throughout its life cycle.

“It will be a different approach from other manufacturers,” he said. “We see their components and our components are quite different … and really it all depends on what sort of technology will evolve at the time and have to match the pace of that.

“As you know the IS F had some model changes each year of its life so the RC F will likely have the same.”

As for whether future variants of the RC F could use hybrid power or a new, turbocharged engine, Yaguchi remained tight lipped.

“We don’t know about the future yet but at this point we don’t have any plans for that,” he said. “In order to put the hybrid on track it still needs a little more development. If we used a current configuration hybrid we’d drain the batteries too fast.

"We’re currently studying the application and looking at the data from the Toyota TS040 Le Mans car and we can’t say it’ll never make it into a production car, but we have no immediate plans.”