Lexus’ sensational new coupe
Who says Lexus product is boring? Not those who might have witnessed a group of four low-slung and glamorous new coupes cruising around Queenstown recently.
The sight of these vehicles might have stopped these onlookers dead – and a little later the sight and sound of them going full-noise around Cromwell’s Highlands Park racetrack would have been mightily impressive, too.
For they were the new Lexus LC500, the brand’s flagship luxury coupe that has just been launched in New Zealand.
This car is easily the most daring design yet produced by Lexus – a coupe with extremely athletic lines, particularly at the rear where a sweeping roofline tapers towards muscular rear guards. And at the front there’s the now-familiar Lexus spindle grille – but this time it is a very big one, in keeping with the car’s extreme design philosophy.
In fact the design is so extreme that many believed it would not be built.
The story of the LC500 goes back more than two years to when Lexus created the LF-LC concept which deeply impressed the motoring press when it went on display at various international motor shows. But many believed the vehicle’s lines were so radical that the car would never make it through to production because to stay true to the design would have entailed too many engineering trade-offs.
‘‘But wow – how wrong were they?,’’ said Lexus New Zealand’s Spencer Morris at the media event in Queenstown.
‘‘Many thought this car would never get past the concept stage. The fact that it did is a triumph for the Lexus brand.’’
What Morris was talking about was a claim by Toyota Motor Corporation president Akio Toyoda who said he was determined that Lexus would become a more emotional brand and that the words ‘‘boring’’ and ‘‘Lexus’’ would never show up in the same sentence again.
With the LC500 that aim has been achieved – big time.
Since its international launch, the vehicle has won numerous design awards including being voted the 2016 Production Car Design of the Year, an honour bestowed by a 20-strong judging panel comprising some of the world’s top vehicle designers. A major reason why it won that award was because of its ‘‘beautiful’’ translation from concept car to production reality.
The LC500 is being launched in New Zealand with two powertrains – a 5-litre naturally aspirated V8 that offers 351kW of power and 540Nm of torque, and a 264kW hybrid that includes a 3.5-litre V6 working in tandem with an electric motor and lithium-ion battery. Both retail for $215,000, and for another $5000 both can be optioned with a carbon-fibre roof and other extras including a Lexus Dynamic Handling package which includes variable gear ratio steering for the front wheels and dynamic rear steering for the rear wheels.
There are several world firsts with this vehicle. The V8 model come with a close-ratio 10-speed automatic transmission which is a first for premium vehicles, while the LC500h features a multi-stage hybrid system which amplifies engine and motor output thanks to a new multi-stage shifter which expands the speed area where maximum engine output can be used. The driver can effectively use this transmission as a 10-speeder by using paddles on the steering wheel.
Both vehicles have Drive Mode select, which lets the driver choose Eco or Normal motoring for cruising, or Sport or Sport+ for performance driving.
At the media launch there was the opportunity to use both versions of the LC500 for a cruise through the Otago countryside, during which the new Lexus provided a firm but not hard ride – in fact the vehicle really did appeal as a car in the true grand tourer tradition.
But at the Highland Park track the LC500 transformed into a coupe with real performance potential. The coupe is the most torsionally rigid Lexus ever made, surpassing even the LFA V10-engined supercar that was hand-built in limited numbers up to a couple of years ago. It’s built on a new front engine/rear drive GA-L (global architecture for luxury vehicles) platform, and it has near-perfect weight distribution. The car also features new lightweight multi-link suspension.
All that rigidity and balance quickly showed up on the track, with the surprisingly good hybrid going through its paces accompanied by a nice V6 snarl, and the big V8 generating a great thumping sound – particularly in the cabin where there’s an intake sound generator that channels the most appealing frequencies inside. This V8 is essentially the same as that aboard the Lexus RC F and GS F, but it squeezes out an extra 10Nm of torque.
Overall, there’s no doubt about it – this new Lexus LC500 is beautiful. Radical yet elegant in its design, beautifully built, with a high level of technology, and offering muscular performance via two very different powertrains, it really does showcase the direction the luxury brand wants to take regarding its image.
It’s little wonder that at launch, 10 of the LCs were already on preorder in New Zealand, based on its looks alone.