5.0l Navigation Mark/levinson Back Up Sunroof Heated Seats Keyless 20k Mile on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Lexus LC 500 stands apart from the go-fast sport luxury crowd

We at Autoblog, by and large, love the LC 500. For its concept-car looks, derived almost verbatim from the 2012 LF-LC concept. And for the charming V8, which growls and burbles appropriately but doesn't subscribe to the faux-backfire trend. Our Editor-in-Chief, Greg Migliore, perfectly summarized the LC 500's appeal when he drove it recently: "Evening walkers cast curious glances. A guy in an old pickup almost sideswiped me as he gawked while taking the corner fast. It's a celebrity car. It also sounds good; the 5.0-liter V8 growls and rumbles. Style and muscle. An excellent execution." I just spent a week in it, my first encounter with the car, and it made me think most about how it's positioned in the Lexus lineup. Notably, it's not positioned as the performance extreme. This is refreshing, because not every car needs to attempt a Nurburgring time. If you want to hunt road-course records in this day and age, it takes massive power and massive traction. We're getting to the point, perhaps well beyond it, where that is doing the stopwatch more favors than the driver. Part of this is decades of marketing putting the sportiest variant of a particular vehicle above the most luxurious in the pecking order of regular vehicles, which doesn't make a ton of sense if you think about it. In the 1960s, the ultimate Mercedes-Benz was the 600 Grosser limousine, which was built like a Rolex bank vault. It had a huge engine, but the point was to move the massive thing around, not for the sheer pleasure of it. Ironically, the Grosser's engine made its way later into the 300 SEL 6.3, turning a large and luxurious sedan into a surprisingly capable bruiser, and then into the Rote Sau race car. Arguably, this was an impetus for the sort of sporty arms race I'm decrying. (Now, when you talk about supercars, or ultimate luxury cars like a Bentley or Maybach, this distinction makes less sense. But let's limit our discussion to vehicles the well-heeled average consumer could actually purchase — things at the upper end of the ranges of normal car manufacturers.) This takes us to the Lexus LC 500. Unlike Mercedes, whose Mercedes-AMG cars are on top of the regular car pecking order, Audi's RS line, BMW's M Division, and Porsche's various Turbos, the LC 500 is simply a large, powerful car. It's comfortable, it looks interesting, and it has more than enough grunt to get out of its own way. There are Sport and Performance options packages, but there's no LC F or F-Line trim available.

Lexus lets enthusiasts build their own LFA to celebrate model's 10th birthday

Lexus launched production of the LFA, a limited-edition supercar still venerated in 2020, in December 2010. While fans would undoubtedly love to see a second-generation model to mark the occasion, the Japanese firm is celebrating 10 years of LFA production by releasing a paper model that enthusiasts can print and build at home. 500 units of the life-sized LFA were made by hand in Japan between 2010 and 2012. The paper model will be hand-made, too, but builders need to arm themselves with scissors and glue instead of wrenches, and production isn't limited. Anyone can print out the templates (which are included in our gallery) and put the car together. Lexus released four templates: one is blue, one is orange, one is white and one wears the colors of the Gazoo Racing team. Building each car is fairly straight-forward, and basic instructions are shown in our gallery. Lexus estimates assembly takes about an hour and a half, and it suggests folding the paper against a ruler to create a perfectly straight edge. It also notes builders should print out each template on A3 paper to make a bigger car. Full building instructions are published on the Lexus United Kingdom media site. Folks who make their own LFA at home are encouraged to share their creation by tagging the brand on its social media channels. We'll award bonus points to anyone that manages to make a paper version of the naturally-aspirated 4.8-liter V10 engine. As for a second-generation model, our advice is not to hold your breath. Lexus is focusing on other projects, like developing electric powertrains, and it doesn't sound like a follow-up to the LFA is high on the company's list of priorities. It hasn't been ruled out, however. "I love it, but we need your help. We need strong requests for a new LFA from the media. This can help us proceed," vice president Koji Sato told British magazine Autocar in 2019. Related Video:

Physical and virtual gaming worlds collide in Lexus IS Hybrid promo

This is really, really cool. In order to promote its new IS Hybrid, Lexus borrowed an airplane hangar, a former Formula One driver and what we imagine was some serious technological knowhow to create one of the most interesting games we've ever seen. It's called Trace Your Road.
Lexus invited some of its Facebook fans out for the game, which put them in the passenger seat of a Lexus IS Hybrid with former F1 shoe Jarno Trulli. They were then handed a tablet and asked to trace out a road, which was projected onto the floor of the hangar. Trulli had to follow the ever-changing path as his passenger kept on tracing away. It looks like it'd be an absolute riot.
This is probably the coolest automotive promotional video since Audi strapped paintball guns on a couple of RS4s. Take a look below to watch the full video from Lexus. We promise, it's worth two minutes of your time.