These are the iconic cars gearheads are obsessed with and why they provoke such a strong response

If Martians landed on Earth tomorrow, it’d take a while to explain why so many gearheads are obsessed with the Lexus LFA or the Mazda RX-7.

The car world is packed with icons that people absolutely adore, and any criticism will generally result in a considerable Reddit-style argument.

It seems a little irrational – but then again, passion always is.

And more importantly, there are reasons why these legends are worshipped by car enthusiasts.

Ferrari F40 – most gearheads would call this the last ‘analog’ Ferrari

There’s no scientific way of assessing whether a car is ‘analog’ or ‘digital’.

Obviously, a Ford Model T is analog, and a Xiaomi SU7 is digital.

But what about a Ferrari 458 Italia, would that be called analog enough?

After all, it already had a bunch of tech that would be considered part of the digital age.

However, and probably for good reason, car lovers collectively decided that the F40 was the last pure, truly analog Ferrari.

The F50, the car that came after, was still pretty simple, but it had an LCD digital dashboard, adjustable ride height, and A/C.

The F40 didn’t have any of those things, and – this is also crucial – it was the last Ferrari personally overseen and greenlighted by Enzo Ferrari himself.

It probably explains why you need millions – plural – to buy one today.

The Mazda RX-7 is an icon that gearheads love for its flawed engine

Some people think that perfect machines are boring; they’re just tools.

But a flawed machine feels more human.

That’s definitely the case with the RX-7, one of many production Mazdas to employ what is probably the biggest ‘what-could-have-been’ engineering solutions ever designed in the automotive world: the Wankel engine.

Named after the guy who invented it, the Wankel engine is a rotary engine with rotors instead of cylinders.

No need to overcomplicate it, but the short version of the long story is that the Mazda RX-7’s rotary engine revs higher, and the power-to-cubic capacity ratio is much better than it can be in a ‘regular’ engine.

Which is one of the reasons it appeared in the Fast & Furious franchise, starting in 2 Fast 2 Furious, pictured below.

And it produced up to 280hp from a puny 1.3-liter engine.

The problem with the Wankel engine is that it sort of never worked in production cars.

It’s generally very unreliable – mostly because, among other things, it floods too easily – and it’s the opposite of fuel-efficient.

Not only that, but it also has a tendency to gulp through oil like it’s nobody’s business.

And that’s by design, by the way, because rotaries need more oil than cylinders do.

But it’s an icon, and people just love it as the pinnacle – along with the Skyline and perhaps the Supra – of the JDM era.

The fact that it appeared in so many Fast & Furious movies also helps, including Tokyo Drift, pictured below, as driven by Han (Sung Kang).

Lexus LFA – it’s all down to the engine noise

People – including gearheads, by the way – sneered when the Lexus LFA was unveiled.

It was a limited-edition supercar with a six-figure price tag, but it was also a Lexus, which felt a little off at the time.

But then everyone stopped sneering when they heard its V10 scream.

Google ‘best-sounding cars ever’, and you’re guaranteed to find the Lexus LFA – and the Porsche Carrera GT – on that list.

We’ll never know whether the Lexus LFA would’ve had the same success with a V8 or a V12 or something else, but we know that its Yamaha-tuned engine gave this car cult status.

If you wanted to buy a Lexus LFA now, in 2026, you’d need between $700,000 and $1,000,000+ depending on different factors, including mileage, condition, etc.

This means the Lexus LFA today is at least two or three times as valuable as it was when it was launched.

Nissan Skyline – the Paul Walker effect

Nissan has used the Skyline nameplate for several different models, but the one that people think of is the one you see here, the R34.

In the past – in the pre-Fast & Furious franchise era – the Skyline was regarded as a great bargain for tuning projects.

It was niche, and it was also a bit geeky.

Something that gearheads loved but everyone else largely ignored.

But then Fast & Furious happened, and the value started going up.

Paul Walker famously drove a few of them in the movies, and also owned a few in real life, including a Skyline R34, which sold for $1,357,000 in 2023, pictured above.

That ultimately cemented the Skyline’s place on this particular list.

McLaren F1 – the weird seating layout, and the top speed

People aged about 30-35 or older will have probably played a game of Top Trumps.

You’ve got different cards listing various stats – for example, the car’s top speed – and the one with the biggest number wins.

For years, the McLaren F1 was always the winner when it came to top speed.

In 1993, the F1 reached a top speed of 231mph (372km/h), which was unthinkable back then, and it held on to that record for quite some time – over 10 years.

Not only that, the F1 still holds the record for the world’s fastest naturally aspirated production car.

But there was also another party trick that made it a star: the unusual seating layout.

The F1 has three seats: two in the back, and one in the front, located centrally.

Strange, but amazing.

Honorable mention: Toyota AE86 Trueno

This is probably not as niche as people think.

In the mid-1990s, a Japanese media company came up with a street racing manga and anime series, AKA a comic book and a cartoon, titled Initial D.

Most gearheads assumed the ‘D’ stood for ‘Drift’, but the series creator, Shuichi Shigeno, eventually admitted that it actually stands for ‘Dream’.

The protagonist of the series was a Toyota AE86 Trueno, often simply called ‘The Trueno’.

It’s a relatively unassuming car, and believe it or not, it is actually just a slightly reworked Toyota Corolla, and yet people adore it.

It’s also not super expensive when compared to other equivalent icons.

That’s going to change soon, though.

Either this year or the next, actor Sung Kang (Fast & Furious‘ Han) will debut with a new movie, Drifter, with a custom-built Trueno that the protagonist (played by Kang himself) will be driving, pictured above.

Get one before the movie is out, because nothing accelerates the value of a car faster than a Hollywood blockbuster.