Lexus IS-F 2008 Review

And it’s that – sporty, sexy and swift. But it’s also everything we’ve always thought Lexus was: refined, restrained and (even in this guise) still responsible.

In some ways, the IS-F is for Lexus what the Celica was for its parent company, Toyota … a saucy little package designed to lure a new buyer to the badge.

But where the Celica was mainly seen as being style over substance, the IS-F has a fair dose of performance to back up its appearance.

The car has been developed with that focus in mind, and the project included considerable track testing, mainly on the challenging Fuji circuit – owned by Toyota, and for which the F in the car’s name stands – but also at famed spots like the Nurburgring, Laguna Seca and (closer to home) our own Phillip Island. Lexus says it was also tested over the appalling bitumen of Sydney’s Double Bay, a suburb that – despite its middle-class obsession with appearing upmarket – has some of the worst surfaces in Australia.

The IS-F returned this week to Phillip Island as part of its Australian launch, which has been held over by Lexus until it could kick off with the lightly revised model rather than the initial one.

The revisions are largely a slight face-lift to visually enhance the car interior and improve functionality of some of the switchgear.

Exterior

They should be able to hold off for a while in having to upgrade the sharp body styling – much of which has been designed to increase downforce — with its wide air dam and strong crease lines flowing from the grille along the edge of the bulging bonnet and through to the flanks.

Among the best cues on the car are the arch-stuffing 19” turbine wheels – each one of the four cast slightly different to pull heat away from the 360mm front/345mm rear six-piston Brembo brakes – and the functional gilles behind the front wheels.

Then there are the staggered oval quad exhausts tips in their mesh housing, which both sets them off and camouflages that they aren’t really connected to the pipes. Lexus admits this is partially a cosmetic feature but says it’s also functional and that the flow travels from pipe to tip. And there’s a diagram demonstrating that somewhere in Japan.

Interior

Sprinkled with F logos, the cabin is handsomely upmarket, except for the silvered carbon-fibre accents on the centre console that unfortunately survived the face-lift. Yes, it’s the genuine material, but cunningly disguised to look like a cheap plastic transfer.

The front seats are well-sculpted with high side and wing bolsters to hold you snug, while the back is deeply divided into two wells that firmly restrict this to a four-seater.

Equipment

The list of goodies for the IS-F is lengthy, but the star turn is the brilliant Mark Levinson audio system, which has been given 1000 hours of tuning to match it to car’s acoustic characteristics.

Supporting roles are taken by the likes of a touchscreen nav, Bluetooth and power-controlled everything, including memory seat settings for both driver and front passenger.

Engine

The engine is the most powerful to every be carried by a Lexus – a dual-injected 5-litre quad cam V8 related to the unit in the LS460 but bored to the larger size and given a unique cylinder block, heads, crankshaft, pistons, conrods, intake and exhaust.

The unit develops 311kW of power at 6600rpm and 505Nm of torque at 5200rpm, redlining at 6800rpm.

The engine’s titanium inlet valves allow faster opening speed to boost performance, with timing controlled by the dual VVT-I (which was outlawed and removed from the 5-litre Lexus race engine used at Daytona).

It has been tuned for sound as well as fury, and with the first dual intake on a Lexus, the secondary port opening gives a great induction snarl at 3600rpm

While it prefers the higher octane, the engine will run on 95RON, and Lexus claims an economy figure of 11.4L/100km.

Transmission

Outputs are delivered to the wheels via a new eight-speed transmission – also developed from the one in the LS460 — with paddles on the steering wheel and a simulated manual mode that Lexus says can give up shifts in 0.1sec and downshifts in 0.2 sec, helped by a throttle blipping control that matches engine speed to the gear.

The transmission can be used in normal mode, snow mode or – for all-out fun – F sport mode in manual, which locks the torque converter from second to eighth gears to unleash the beast within, and the system changing throttle characteristics, steering assistance and the dynamics control settings.

Safety

Key to safety in the IS-F is the integrated dynamics system (VDIM) that dovetails stability, traction and throttle controls with anti-skid brakes, brake assist and force distribution. The system is intended to anticipate when you are likely to skid out of control and bring the technology into play to prevent it. The stability control (VSC) can be switched off, leaving only the limited slip differential and ABS in control.

The car rolls on Bridgestone Potenza tyres, which Lexus admits may not have ultimate dry grip but are judged by them to have the best wet/dry compromise.

Suspension

Unlike rivals such as the Audi RS4, the Lexus doesn’t have adjustable suspension, but works with an independent double-wishbone front and multi-link rear system with coil springs and gas dampers. Lexus believes that unless you can adjust both spring and damping rates, you shouldn’t risk having adjustable suspension.

However the system has been given a different calibration to the IS250, with stiffer springs and stabiliser bars, plus larger dampers to give a sportier result.

Pricing and sales

When the car was first shown at the Sydney Motor Show a year ago, there was strong inquiry and deposits were taken on an estimated price of $150,000. However the final tag has emerged as $129,000 – an aggressive swipe at targeting the BMW M3 at $157,00, the Audi RS4 at $164,500 and even the Mercedes-Benz C 63 at $146,000.

While the price may make it attractive, there could be a dampener in the waiting time. With just 25 a day being built by specially trained workers at the Tahara plant in Japan (where another Lexus rolls off the line every 87 seconds) – and about 6700 sold in the first year – the Australian queue stretches out to February delivery.

DRIVING

The Lexus engine voice up to now has always been a restrained purr, so the note of the IS-F unit came as a stirring surprise as it opened its throat in a wonderfully undignified induction snarl and an angry blurt at the auto-blip on the downshift.

There’s plenty of urge there to match, too, with the engine responding forcefully to requests. We managed 0-100km in just a smidge over 5 seconds in a very rough test, so the Lexus claim of 4.8 under proper test conditions looks more than reasonable.

Gear changes are swift and smooth, and the ability to use the paddles while still in full automatic mode offers a good option for the occasional times when you need an extra burst of power of engine braking in highway cruising or city traffic.

And the well-weighted steering is the best we’ve seen on a Lexus, although there’s still a feeling that it’s missing the absolute directness of some of its more expensive rivals.

But we were able to throw it around with a lot of satisfaction, and a bit of time on the skid pan switching between the varied options of the stability control system proved not only the benefit of the technology but that you could have your safety in whatever degree you felt comfortable with.

All this adds up to a very good car. But if there was one aspect that undermined it, you could feel it in the seat of your pants – or any other part of the body that was jolted around by what turned out to be a surprisingly bumpy ride.

We expected it to be firm – the price you pay for sportiness – but it was also far more jumpy than we would have imagined at this price.