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2013 Lexus IS F

Sometimes fortune really smiles on even shiftless car-reviewing Dutchmen like myself, I must admit. I had come into Austin, TX the week before I was supposed to meet up with the good people at Lexus, who had graciously invited me to drive the 2014 IS. I flew in early because Austin is a pretty good place to eat, as well as being a place that my wife doesn't live. Let me say that a nicer way... while my stunningly attractive wife pretty much represents all things good and light in this world, she does occasionally shoot me a sideways glance when I dig in for my fifth Tacodeli breakfast taco. Thankfully, I leave most of my good sense and information about the effects of high-calorie diets on lifespan at home with Molly when I come to Texas, so I can better focus my laser-like attention on car reviews and TexMex. You guys are worth it.
Aside from all the tacos, I was also lucky to be visiting town the weekend before South By Southwest really kicked off in earnest, because it was that Sunday that my good old buddy John, and my new old buddy Pat, were headed up to the Circuit of the Americas to see the first ever SCCA Majors event there. It was lucky that I had planned to be out at CotA, which is east of Austin, because that made it very slightly easier for a very nice woman named Marcia to bring me a 2013 Lexus IS F from Houston, roughly 150 miles away.
Marcia brought me the IS F to replace another press car, which was having mechanical troubles; I didn't ask for the fire-breathing IS but when it was offered up I figured I couldn't do much better as a warm up for the 2014 IS program I was about to go on. See, lucky right?

Lexus F label to become even more performance oriented

Lexus has plans to take its F performance label to even greater heights, according to officials. That's one of the key reasons the IS 500 F Sport Performance wasn't a full-blown IS F, Lexus executives said. Speaking before a gathering of Lexus enthusiasts at the IS 500 Launch Edition's, uh, launch at Sebring Raceway, group vice president and general manager of the Lexus division Andrew Gilleland reaffirmed that the IS 500 F Sport Performance is the first in a line of high-performance but sub-F cars (at 5:11 in the video below). "There will definitely be more vehicles. There's a lot more coming where this came from," Gilleland said, eliciting cheers from the gathered crowd of enthusiasts. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Gilleland then pointed at Lexus product planner Cooper Erickson and told the fans, many of whom had brought their own tuned F cars to the event, "If you want to see more of this," gesturing to the IS 500, "Go bug the s--t out of him." Erickson himself then took to the stage and discussed how the IS 500 came to be and the future of the F designation (at 6:17 in the video). First, he acknowledged that sedan sales are challenging. He also described the 2021 IS's chassis as a combination of the GS and RC platforms, which grew the track 1.4 inches wider. "If it's part GS and part RC, then why can't we drop a big-ass V8 in it?" Erickson wanted to know. "Nobody's doing that. But, we can," Erickson continued, "Because we do an amazing job with our hybrid products. So from a CAFE, greenhouse gas and emissions standpoint, we can manage having a V8 in a car like this when nobody else can." However, it still required approval from the mothership in Toyota City. So during an event at Pebble Beach, Erickson told Lexus chief engineer Koji Sato that he wanted to bring back the IS F. "Let's put the V8 in it, Let's do an IS F," he told Sato. At first, Sato's reply seemed like a no. "We have new plans for F," he explained. "F will be higher. Only Akio [Toyoda] can approve F [cars]." The CEO is known for being one of the few carmaker heads that actually moonlights as a racing driver. Erickson said that even if the IS F was off the table, he still wanted a V8-powered IS. "So what if we call it IS 500 F Sport? Who can approve that?" Sato's reply: "Cooper-san, I can approve that." Apparently the rest is history. This content is hosted by a third party.

2015 Lexus RC 350

Luxury coupes like this new, 2015 Lexus RC 350 have got, to my mind, a more challenging mission than their all-out-performance variants; in this case, the recently reviewed RC F.
That's not to say that I think actual owners and shoppers of cars like the RC F, BMW M4 and Cadillac CTS-V Coupe only care about output figures and lap times. In fact I'd say that those are outliers in terms of how they get used most often. But the story that we reviewers tell - and that shoppers in the ego-boosted segment tell themselves before they pull the trigger - have a lot to do with what the car is capable of on the edge of its envelope.
Mainstream coupes can't rely on that kind of irrational pull, however, at least outside of the emotional world of styling persuasion. For a buyer to drop more than $40,000 on the RC 350, he or she will want tons of features, comfort, good looks, and, yes, a dash of sportiness to spice of the pot. Reason and desire seem a lot more balanced here. That's great news for Lexus, with its history of creating sensible luxury cars and a pretty composed luxury coupe in this new RC.