Every once and a while, a classic Lexus LS 400 clip will show up on Youtube, showing the car up against its competitors, and it always amazes me just how throughly Lexus thought out their first model. Here we have a 1990 video clip from Top Gear, putting the LS 400 up against the Mercedes 420SE, Jaguar 4.0, and the BMW 735i:

To think that the Mercedes cost £4000 more than the LS 400, and didn’t even come with air conditioning or a radio (mind you, it was the long-wheelbase version). I’ve read that the luxury brands at the time were fairly complacent, but I had no idea of the extent.

The Lexus IS-F comparison tests keep pouring in, this time from Motor Trend, who pits the new super-sedan against its primary competitors, the BMW M3 and the Mercedes C63. Here’s some selected highlights:

Steering feedback and response are everything in a car like this…The C63’s turn-in is crisp, with plenty of honest feedback and a meaty feel. Lexus equips the IS F with electric power steering, which isn’t as organic as a good hydraulic system. It’s fine for normal to moderate driving, but loses sensitivity when you’re really honking it. The IS F’s cornering abilities are impressive, but the car understeers heavily at the limit, and the wheel feels disconnected at that point. The BMW’s tiller is about as quick as the others but a bit lighter. Its communication is even clearer than the C63’s, with plenty of true road feel.

Kim Reynolds says, “The Lexus and the Mercedes feel like performance versions created out of something else. The M3 feels like it was born this way.” Ed Loh’s summary is even more succinct: “The Lexus and Mercedes are great hot-rod sedans. The M3 is a race car with four doors.”

Lexus is new to this game, yet has delivered a fast, edgy, credible piece from a company most known for quiet and beautifully crafted, if uninvolving, luxury sedans. A couple of clunky design elements let it down, and its steering and suspension calibrations aren’t as well synthesized at the limit as the others. As the IS F costs no less than the German duo, there’s no value card to be thrown. But we’re picking nits, and we know the brand’s next effort will be fully class-competitive.

Predictably, the IS-F came in last, not all that surprising considering the other competitors’ performance-brand history, not to mention how fantastic both these new versions of the M3 and C63 are.

As the article is quick to point out, this is only Lexus’ first effort in the super-sedan category, and there’s significant tuning and improvements that will need to be made.

Turns out there was more than one part to the Best Motoring comparison that I posted about a couple days ago. Get comfortable and and take a look at this 20 minute video (for quickness’ sake, the two main competitors as I see them, the BMW M3 and the IS-F, are at 1:25 and 13:36 respectively):

Again, there seems to be an issue with improper shifting with the IS-F, but regardless, the stats against the BMW M3 broke down like this:

Lap Time

Grip

Drift

No matter how subjective the Grip and Drift ratings may be, these are numbers coming from a highly respected source, so it’s hard to find fault with the results. One thing’s for sure, it’s no question that these cars are neck and neck, and I imagine that’s exactly what Lexus was gunning for.

[Via: Auto Spies]

When I found out about this Best Motoring video pitting the Lexus IS-F against the BMW M3, Nissan Z, and the Honda S2000, I didn’t expect to see a repeat of yesterday’s video result, with the IS-F blowing the doors off the other cars. Too bad the video plays like a poorly staged mock race:

It’s quite clear from the IS-F tachometer display that the driver really had no clue what he was doing, late/poor shifting is going to kill you in any race. Not only that, the M3 was driven by Keiichi Tsuchiya, known in Japan as “the Drift King”, and was clearly head and shoulders above any of the other competitors.

Really, this wasn’t a race at all.

The January 2008 editon of Best Motoring, one of Japan’s most popular automotive TV/DVD shows, has a Lexus IS-F vs. Nissan Skyline Coupe 370GT Type S (Infiniti G37 Sport in North America) showdown:

While it can’t match the IS-F in a 0-60 race, the 333hp Skyline Coupe Type S holds its own on the track, with only a two second difference in laptimes. Not bad for a car that retails for a little more than half of the IS-F. The details are lost due to the language barrier, though.

As an added bonus, the host, ‘Drift King’ Keiichi Tsuchiya, also slides each model through the track:

It’s hard to discount the power of Youtube when you can watch a 1989 episode of Top Gear detailing the introduction of the then-newly released Lexus LS 400 (jump ahead to 1:26 to get there directly):

Not a full-on review, which is a slight disappointment, but the praise is astounding, let me quote presenter Tiff Needell:

“The power from the big 32-valve V8 engine comes on as smoothly as the Jaguar, which is saying something. The ride is certainly as good as the Mercedes 420, and the handling on these winding mountain roads is at least the equivalent of a BMW.”

I imagine, when comparing the handling to a BMW, he’s referring to the 7-series.