Lexus IS: 1st Generation (1998-2005)

With all the economic doom & gloom, let’s indulge in some stress of an entirely different sort:

Joe’s a little too risky, if you ask me. His little move has backfire written all over it.

Not every day you get to see a souped 700hp Lexus IS engine blow up (make sure to turn the sound down, loud rap music ahead):

Not sure on the full story, but I can’t help but think whoever made this video of must have wanted to rub it in — either that or it was the owner.

(I wonder if it was this IS?)

Normally, I wouldn’t post a video like this, but the insane power of this car needs to be shared. (Funny thing is, at lower speeds, it still managed to retain its Lexus characteristics.)

I wouldn’t call this a Lexus video necessarily, but this sped up footage by Flickr user sullivan1985 featuring an IS 300 is still pretty cool:

(Direct link to video)

Reminds me of this scene from movie Ghost Dog:

(As a sidenote, I’ve wanted to post that Ghost Dog clip since I started this site.)

Ignoring everything that could have went wrong, this video of a Lexus IS 300 drifting 180° into a garage is just the thing for a Friday afternoon:

Really though, that’s a perfect setup, how could you not try that if you had a driveway like that?

Ken Brown, who spends his days photographing coachbuilt classics for the Blackhawk Museum in California, managed to squeeze in a shoot with a coworker’s IS 300:

Just wonderful, makes the car look like a diecast model, but it doesn’t even touch the other photos in Ken’s Flickr Stream. The ‘57 Mercedes SL300 is fantastic, but my favorite has to be the Bentley Badge. Brilliant.