Another week, another Fifth Gear Lexus review posted on YouTube.

This time up, it’s the Lexus IS220d, from an episode aired in 2005:

There’s a few things that stand out in this review, when Tom Ford compares it to the BMW 320d:

“Do you want to be able to say, ‘My car’s faster than your car?’, or do you want to say ‘My Car’s torque-r and more refined than your car?’”

“If I’ve got to cover 30,000 miles a year, I don’t want a car that only satisfies me 10% of the time, I’d prefer something that really did isolate me and make me feel comfortable 90% of the time.”

The 220d is only available in Europe, and will seemingly remain that way indefinitely.

[Source: egmCarTech]

From Japan’s car magazine Car Top comes a digital rendition of a Lexus IS Coupe & Convertible:

Keep in mind this is only a photochop and has no real basis in reality, though this car has been hinted at since 2005.

Really, it’s more a question of when we’ll be seeing these cars, because the addition of two IS variants would significantly level the playing field as Lexus tries to cut in on BMW 3-series and Mercedes C-Class sales. At the very least, there’s an IS convertible sized hole in the model lineup.

[Source: Nihon Car]

The global economy in effect or the growing geographic ineptitude of America?

An Anderson Analytics survey asked 1,000 U.S. college students to name the county-of-origin of particular brands, one of which was Lexus. 33.7% of the respondents believed it to be an American company, with 37.3% correctly identifying the country-of-origin as Japan. Not a particularly poor result, especially in light of the other misidentified brands — only 16.8% of people correctly identified Volvo as Swedish, and 58.4% guessed Land Rover was American.

Some took this as an opportunity to attack American youth and their lack of knowledge, but it seems unfair considering the volume of brands that exist in the world today. Should students really make a point of learning where cars come from? Cell phones?

Unfair, that is, until you find out that half of American students can’t find New York on a map.

[Source: Carscoop]

Tom Ford of Fifth Gear, the British car show, takes a ride in the new LS460 and really talks up the technology (most of which is not available on North American models): the advanced obstacle detection system, the car’s ability to stay in lane with no user input, driver monitoring and one of the smoothest examples of the self-parking feature I’ve seen yet — the car really does drive itself:

Audi has gone catty and released a commercial that claws at the Lexus LS460’s ability to park itself:

Not content to be oh-so-subtle with the dig, the car even slides between a LS460 and an IS350.

(Is this about the LS460 winning World Car of the Year over the Audi TT?)

In a rather surprising move, Rupert Murdoch took time out from trying to buy the Wall Street Journal to announce his intention to bring News Corporation to a “carbon-neutral” state by 2010.

As part of the campaign, Murdoch “has bought a Toyota-made Lexus GS450H “green” car, and other practical measures include solar-powered golf carts to carry people round the Fox film lot in Hollywood, building environmentally friendly studios, replacing company fleets with hybrids, using renewable energy, and offsetting remaining emissions by financing windpower in India.”

Sadly, there were no photos of Rupert in his GS, so I whipped up something in Photoshop: