Where Am I Contest: PaulMorgan Beats LennyZ By 11.96 Meters, Wins IPad

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

The results are in. There is a winner in the Where Am I Contest: After careful photoanalysis, TTAC’s independent and impartial one man jury declares PaulMorgan the winner of the Where Am I contest. Here is the post-game analysis:

The Best & Brightest have been super bright, and quickly narrowed-down the target area as Toyota’s Motomachi plant. Somewhere in this plant, 170 men and women work on Toyota’s future. They make the Lexus LFA supercar, by hand. Their true mission is to develop the carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) technology for use in lightweight, high strength car bodies that can be made at reasonable cost in large quantities.

Mitchw, after struggling a bit with medical care facilities and Brazilians, had me speechless by picking the LFA assembly building a day early. However, Paul Morgan beat him to the secret door.

TTAC received unprecedented access to the LFA Workshop. In a 5-part series, LFA Chief Engineer Haruhiko Tanahashi and his crew will guide you through the 10 year history of the LFA, and will show you how CFRP can change the way future cars will be built. This series will be accompanied by never before published pictures that show the technology in extraordinary detail. This series will run from July 9th through July 13th. Mere mortals had to pay $375,000 to get access, along with an LFA. Journalists were not invited to the running series production. In a TTAC exclusive, you will see what is behind the door of the LFA Workshop.

The series begins at that door of the LFA Workshop, and the door was the ultimate target of the Where Am I Contest.

The final guesses were so precise that the winner could only be determined with the help of Google Earth. LennyZ had the right idea and actually could see the door, 73.85 meters away from his final position at 35° 4’26.59″N and 137° 7’48.00″E.

However, around the corner lurked PaulMorgan at 35° 4’29.64″N and 137° 7’48.56″E, which Google Earth shows as 61.89 meters from the target, beating LennyZ by a mere 11.96 meters. Congratulations, Paul. Tell us where to ship the iPad. You deserve it.

An amazingly large group of the Best and Brightest clustered their pins right around the place where the actual CFRP making takes place. However, the LFA workshop is actually two workshops.

One for the CFRP making. One for painting and final assembly. The door in question happens to be in front of the painting and final assembly part, and not where the CFRP is being made. Sharp thinking on the part of juicy sushi, buddhaflow, Peerson, Mandalorian, MitchW et al. But as I said, sorry, wrong building.

I am sorry that Autointell.com did lead some astray. Their map of Motomachi is utterly wrong. Goes to show that one simply can’t believe anything anymore on the Internet. Above is the real and official map, with some stations of our inspection tour of the LFA workshop marked.

Congratulations to PaulMorgan!

All hail MitchW!

Praise for all who dropped pins in the general vicinity of Motomachi!

And stay tuned for The Making Of The Lexus LFA Supercar – a five part series. From July 9th through July 13th. Here, at TTAC.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

More by Bertel Schmitt

Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 17 comments
  • Jruhi4 Jruhi4 on Jul 05, 2012

    Congratulations, Bertel, on pulling off this awesome scoop. Definitely looking forward to reading your series on the LFA Motomachi facility. Maybe Tanahashi-san can reveal more info on those baby blue and bright green LFAs recently prowling the Nürburgring beyond the official “this test was part of the many research activities Lexus conducts" line, such as why the tiffany blue one has the different exhaust system...

  • Obbop Obbop on Jul 05, 2012

    Expect to be questioned ASAP by the NSA when returning to the USA.

  • Lorenzo Heh. The major powers, military or economic, set up these regulators for the smaller countries - the big guys do what they want, and always have. Are the Chinese that unaware?
  • Lorenzo The original 4-Runner, by its very name, promised something different in the future. What happened?
  • Lorenzo At my age, excitement is dangerous. one thing to note: the older models being displayed are more stylish than their current versions, and the old Subaru Forester looks more utilitarian than the current version. I thought the annual model change was dead.
  • Lorenzo Well, it was never an off-roader, much less a military vehicle, so let the people with too much money play make believe.
  • EBFlex The best gift would have been a huge bonfire of all the fak mustangs in inventory and shutting down the factory that makes them.Heck, nobody would even have to risk life and limb starting the fire, just park em close together and wait for the super environmentally friendly EV fire to commence.
Next