The Lexus IS-F finally made its Top Gear appearance this weekend, competing against the BMW M3:

Also part of the episode was the Stig pushing the IS-F around the Top Gear track:

The results were a forgone conclusion, I can’t imagine anyone’s all that surprised that Jeremy Clarkson preferred the BMW M3 over the IS-F. However, the IS-F made a surprisingly good showing, Clarkson was genuinely impressed, and I certainly wasn’t expecting that.

As always, it’s a great video — but be sure to watch it quickly, as Top Gear clips don’t remain on Youtube for long.

(Thanks Hube!)

Somehow this slipped by me, but the UK prices for the 2009 Lexus IS were announced earlier this week and show some significant savings over last year’s model. Here’s a full table breakdown, courtesy of 4WheelsNews:

Of course, the big deal here is that the new 2009 IS has just been revamped, so getting a price drop on top of the improvements is a jolly-good deal.

German TV Show D Motor compared the Lexus IS-F and Mercedes C63 in their latest episode, and no matter how tired you might be of this duel, this english-subbed feature is tops:

Just to be clear, host Tim Schrick did use the adjective “super cool” four times to describe the IS-F, you couldn’t fake that enthusiasm. And take a look at this screencap:

(Just curious, this show is obviously using Top Gear as a template, does anyone else find it weird how much this presenter looks like Richard Hammond?)

In an interview with German newspaper WirtschaftsWoche, Lexus Europe Managing Director Tadashi Arashima confirmed that Lexus will indeed be launching a compact entry-level model. From Motor Authority:

“We will offer a Lexus in the compact class,” he told reporters, explaining that the company needs “smaller and more efficient vehicles” to meet Europe’s CO2 emissions regulations. He described the car as being a rival to the likes of BMW’s 1-series and Audi’s A3, although he didn’t reveal any exact release date.

Lexus has been selling in cars in Europe since 1990 but it still commands less than 1% of the total market, something Arashima hopes to change with the introduction of a more affordable and more fuel-efficient model.

Motor Authority seems to think that this isn’t a vehicle we will see in North America, but I don’t believe that to be the case at all. In fact, I’d go as far to say that this would probably eclipse BMW 1-series & Audi A3 sales in very short order. Tiny luxury, especially combined with hybrid technology, would be a perfect package for the USA’s current economic climate.

[Source: Motor Authority Image: Lexus Owners Club]

Some interesting facts came out of a Europa Press interview with Lexus Europe vice-president Andy Pfeiffenberger — from the translated text:

…the vice president of the European subsidiary of Toyota said his company expected its sales this year on the European continent will be reduced by about 11%, to about 48,000 units, due to economic weakness, which has resulted in a sharp decline in car registrations in the region, particularly in the markets in Spain, Italy, Britain and Germany.

The new vice president of the company on the European continent stressed that “probably in the future” Lexus brand will become a “fundamentally hybrid,” in which the highest sales volume for this technology.

Pfeiffenberger explained that the subsidiary of the Toyota group is considering making a new compact model in order to compete with cars like the BMW 1 Series or the Audi A3, which are in a segment in which the Japanese firm is not present at present.

An 11% drop certainly isn’t good news, but at least it’s lower than the projected US number. It also gives us some insight to the overall brand growth in Europe, where statistics are far and few between.

As far as the Lexus competitor to the 1-Series or the A3, I’ve gone from one extreme to the other, where it’s now to a point where it’s probably the vehicle I’m most looking forward to in the Lexus lineup.

[Source: Europa Press via AutoblogGreen]

In a replay of last year, a Lexus RX 450h 400h advertisement has been banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority:

The press ad, for the Lexus RX 400h, made the claim: “perfect for today’s climate. (And tomorrow’s) … Driving the world’s first luxury hybrid SUV makes environmental, and economic, sense …”

Four complaints were made to the Advertising Standards Authority that the claims were misleading because “they implied that the car caused little or no harm to the environment and gave a misleading impression of the car’s CO2 emissions in comparison with other vehicles”.

Lexus said that the use of the word “climate” in the ad was meant to operate at “two levels”.

One was that in the current economic market the Lexus was offered with attractive financial packages, the other that hybrid cars were more environmentally friendly.

But the ASA said the ad implied that the vehicle’s emission rate was low in relation to all vehicles and that readers were likely to understand that “the car caused little or no harm to the environment”.

(The above advertisement is a modified version made by Lexus after the receiving complaints. The original ad didn’t have the word “economic” in the headline.)

To be honest, I see anything wrong with the ad at all, and not only that, isn’t it strange that Lexus isn’t allowed to promote their product’s strength over competitors?

[Source: The Guardian]