IS-F FULL TEST
Thread Starter
Registered User
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 6,536
Likes: 0
From: Orlando
IS-F FULL TEST
http://www.automobilemag.com/reviews/lexus...is-f/index.html
Wow, it seems Lexus means business with this car. Styling aside, I'm very impressed. On a side note, I'm thinking that IS CarandDriver got was a freaking ringer. Nobody else could get the car that fast. Not edmunds, motortrend, automag.
Wow, it seems Lexus means business with this car. Styling aside, I'm very impressed. On a side note, I'm thinking that IS CarandDriver got was a freaking ringer. Nobody else could get the car that fast. Not edmunds, motortrend, automag.
Registered User
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 4,535
Likes: 0
From: Phoenix
Seems like a somewhat schizophrenic review. They apparently loved it, but made it simultaneously sound like they found a few significant faults with it. I'll have to read the other tests to form an opinion on this car.
Registered User
Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 607
Likes: 0
i saw an IS with gold bbs lm's, quad stacked exhaust, and it was wrapped in the black tarps. total under cover IS-F. guy was driving it around my neighborhood ripping it like a jackass. tried to get a picture, but he covered his face, and boned out! lol. the car sounds nice....
Thread Starter
Registered User
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 6,536
Likes: 0
From: Orlando
Originally Posted by kumainu,Oct 27 2007, 01:30 PM
May be C&D testers were better drivers, or their road surface had more grip?
This shot of it looks pretty good!
This shot of it looks pretty good!
So far I've seen mid to high 4's.
Registered User
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 1,195
Likes: 0
From: Tampa, FL
wow... reads like excerpts from an obituary... 
Despite Yamaha-developed cylinder heads with titanium intake valves and hollow camshafts, the oversquare V-8 feels like it's running out of breath by 6000 rpm, and the engine note goes flat by the time the computer pulls the plug at a mere 6800 rpm.
Unfortunately, the transmission uses the same curiously spaced gears as it does in the LS460.
So, it doesn't scream, but the Lexus engine won't win any singing competitions, either. A secondary air intake opens up at 3600 rpm, filling the cabin with a contrived, nasal induction honk under big throttle openings. It's not particularly pleasing inside the car, and it completely stifles the exhaust noise-the noise that makes the German V-8s so desirable.
But that hot-rod mission is one-sided, and the IS-F's potential customers will expect their cars to do more than simply tear up the tarmac on a racecourse. For all the speed the IS-F gained on the track, it lost even more of the ordinary IS's drivability and good looks. And on the streets and in the showrooms, that's what really counts.
But is that enough to turn the IS-F into the kind of icon that the M3 has become? We don't think so.
Six-inch flames are shooting out of the six-piston front calipers; thick smoke is billowing out of the two-piston rears.
Despite Yamaha-developed cylinder heads with titanium intake valves and hollow camshafts, the oversquare V-8 feels like it's running out of breath by 6000 rpm, and the engine note goes flat by the time the computer pulls the plug at a mere 6800 rpm.
Unfortunately, the transmission uses the same curiously spaced gears as it does in the LS460.
So, it doesn't scream, but the Lexus engine won't win any singing competitions, either. A secondary air intake opens up at 3600 rpm, filling the cabin with a contrived, nasal induction honk under big throttle openings. It's not particularly pleasing inside the car, and it completely stifles the exhaust noise-the noise that makes the German V-8s so desirable.
But that hot-rod mission is one-sided, and the IS-F's potential customers will expect their cars to do more than simply tear up the tarmac on a racecourse. For all the speed the IS-F gained on the track, it lost even more of the ordinary IS's drivability and good looks. And on the streets and in the showrooms, that's what really counts.
But is that enough to turn the IS-F into the kind of icon that the M3 has become? We don't think so.
Six-inch flames are shooting out of the six-piston front calipers; thick smoke is billowing out of the two-piston rears.
Thread Starter
Registered User
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 6,536
Likes: 0
From: Orlando
Originally Posted by Iceman1,Oct 27 2007, 11:24 PM
wow... reads like excerpts from an obituary...
Despite Yamaha-developed cylinder heads with titanium intake valves and hollow camshafts, the oversquare V-8 feels like it's running out of breath by 6000 rpm, and the engine note goes flat by the time the computer pulls the plug at a mere 6800 rpm.
Unfortunately, the transmission uses the same curiously spaced gears as it does in the LS460.
So, it doesn't scream, but the Lexus engine won't win any singing competitions, either. A secondary air intake opens up at 3600 rpm, filling the cabin with a contrived, nasal induction honk under big throttle openings. It's not particularly pleasing inside the car, and it completely stifles the exhaust noise-the noise that makes the German V-8s so desirable.
But that hot-rod mission is one-sided, and the IS-F's potential customers will expect their cars to do more than simply tear up the tarmac on a racecourse. For all the speed the IS-F gained on the track, it lost even more of the ordinary IS's drivability and good looks. And on the streets and in the showrooms, that's what really counts.
But is that enough to turn the IS-F into the kind of icon that the M3 has become? We don't think so.
Six-inch flames are shooting out of the six-piston front calipers; thick smoke is billowing out of the two-piston rears.
Despite Yamaha-developed cylinder heads with titanium intake valves and hollow camshafts, the oversquare V-8 feels like it's running out of breath by 6000 rpm, and the engine note goes flat by the time the computer pulls the plug at a mere 6800 rpm.
Unfortunately, the transmission uses the same curiously spaced gears as it does in the LS460.
So, it doesn't scream, but the Lexus engine won't win any singing competitions, either. A secondary air intake opens up at 3600 rpm, filling the cabin with a contrived, nasal induction honk under big throttle openings. It's not particularly pleasing inside the car, and it completely stifles the exhaust noise-the noise that makes the German V-8s so desirable.
But that hot-rod mission is one-sided, and the IS-F's potential customers will expect their cars to do more than simply tear up the tarmac on a racecourse. For all the speed the IS-F gained on the track, it lost even more of the ordinary IS's drivability and good looks. And on the streets and in the showrooms, that's what really counts.
But is that enough to turn the IS-F into the kind of icon that the M3 has become? We don't think so.
Six-inch flames are shooting out of the six-piston front calipers; thick smoke is billowing out of the two-piston rears.
Trending Topics
Registered User
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 4,127
Likes: 0
From: Orange Park
As usual I think Lexus missed their mark with this car. It should have been 9/10th's of what the new M3 offers for 7 or 8/10th's of the price...instead it's less than the M3 (or C63) offers for the the same price as the M3 and close to the price of the C63. I can't wait to run into the first IS-F on the street in my 335 and surprise the crap out of them.
