Lexus IS F 2008 review

The Japanese luxury maestros may have taken their time in risking anything approaching an emotional project but, in the ISF, the company renowned for refinement has produced a performance firecracker.

A small sedan stuffed full of five litres of in-your-face V8 punching out 311kW, 505Nm and 0-100km/h sprint times of 4.8 seconds may be difficult to reconcile with the same company that produced the SC430 and called that a sports car — but this time they're serious.

“What's important to us about this car is that it gives us a performance car in the range, which is something we've never had before,” Lexus Australia boss John Rocca said at the first Australian drive of the ISF at the Fuji Speedway in Japan last week.

“We haven't just put a V8 in this car and shouted job done. We could easily have called it an IS500, but we didn't because this is a thoroughbred built for racing. This is really a car built for the track and adapted to the road.

“Whereas in the past we could have been criticised for putting a big engine in a car and calling it a high-performance vehicle, this time that's not the case.

“It gives us a totally new customer and sheds an entirely different light on a company that in the past has been criticised for being bland and unemotional. There's nothing bland about this car.”

Based on the IS — known to Australians in its V6 IS250 guise and expected down under in October at around $145,000 — the fact that the ISF ever saw light of day is due almost entirely to the passion of a man who spent much of his early time with Lexus divesting the driver of sensory inputs by developing the eerily quiet interior noise levels of the original Lexus limousine, the LS400.

Ironically, it was those efforts in refinement that won Yukihiko Yaguchi the kudos in senior management circles that allowed him the leeway in 2002 to play with his own private “skunk works” within the strictly structured Lexus world.

“When I started there was no budget ... many people didn't understand what I wanted to do,” Yaguchi recalled. “It was hard.

“On the other hand, some top management knew me well from my involvement in ensuring that the LS ran extremely silently. That was a huge achievement so they understood that I was capable of developing something no one ever had before.”

Lexus holds firm orders for 38 of the ISFs and Rocca is confident the supply-restricted 120 cars a year available to Australia will do little more than whet the appetite as the car's reputation spreads.

Styled to be aggressive without being threatening, the ISF isn't the poster kid for athletic design. With its bonnet swollen to contain the impressive engine, the first impression is of a boxer who's taken one too many on the nose — tough but not necessarily attractive.

There's no doubting the power of this car. It's evident from when the first tickle of the throttle lights the wick until the final burble of the exhaust dies away on shutdown.

It's not a slap-in-the-back car. Neither is it brutal in the manner of the C63, but rather more refined without being overwhelmed.

The dedication to detail and the uncompromising determination to tick all the boxes adds credence to the claim from Lexus that the ISF is a track car transferred to the road rather than the reverse.

Under the bonnet, the 5.0-litre V8 has been lovingly built up in the company's “clean room” engine facility. The quad cam multi-valve unit features Yamaha-developed high-flow cylinder heads, variable valve timing with electronic control on the inlet actuation, titanium inlet valves, high-lift camshafts and a full stainless steel dual exhaust.

The fuel tank even has a 10-litre sub-tank to ensure constant fuel feed under track loads.

Coupled to the eight-speed automatic from the LS460 — again the question is, do you really need that many cogs with the amount of torque the V8 is turning out? — the engine will spin to 6800rpm in what seems like no time at all. The urge to drive the ISF hard is nigh-on irresistible, if only to induce the secondary induction to open up to full roar from around 3600rpm.

The active system is hardly unique, but it still makes the hairs on your arms stand on end.

Thrown through the Fuji circuit, the ISF retains impeccable poise through a combination of solid engineering — double wishbones up front and a multi-link set-up under the rear, each with high-rate coil springs and upsized stabiliser bars — and the compulsory electronic wizardry.

Traction control, stability control, antilock brakes with electronic brake force distribution and electronic brake assistance are bundled together in the Lexus's Vehicle Dynamic Integrated Management system.

Australian cars will also come standard with the pre-collision system and eight airbags.

The speed-sensitive steering, adequate in its basic configuration and much more enjoyable in the sharper sports mode, is as good as anything Lexus has ever done and combined with a serious set of Brembo brakes — six-piston grippers on 360mm front discs — imbues a sense of wellbeing.

If BMW, Mercedes and Audi thought Lexus was a thorn in the luxury battle, then the premium-performance angst is going to be all the greater.