LEXUS EXTRA TERRESTRIAL

The Lexus LC 500 is like a tip-toeing ballerina and a beer- chugging Nascar hooligan all in one, with leather sourced only from the nape of a cow’s neck

AND now for something a little different. Lexus, which in recent years has shown it can think outside the polyester grey box with increasingly daring design language, has now gone completely buck wild with a new grand tourer modelled to the nearest millimetre off a genuine concept car.

The LC 500 you see here is an almost exact copy of the LF-LC concept which blew minds at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show, thanks to its impossibly creasy body, humongous whale shark grille and pure science fiction lights.

All things that rarely, if ever, make it through the cutting room and into real life production.

Only here they did, and compared with other modern-day grand tourers the LC looks like something from outer space. It’s extraterrestrial.

The LC500 doesn’t conform to the genres we normally categorise cars in, and trying to pigeonhole it as a regular GT would be an injustice.

Fact is this is as much a tourer as a Bentley Continental, but it’s also as much a sports car as a Porsche

911 and (almost) as much a luxury flagship as a Merc S-Class. If there’s a line, the LC straddles it.

If we had to pick a true rival, BMW’s 650i would be it for price, power and appeal comparisons, but the two are worlds apart in design.

This car rides on Lexus’s new

GA-L chassis architecture, meaning it has a front-engine, rear-drive, fourwheel steering layout that will also underpin future GS and LS sedans. In this application power comes from a 351kW/540Nm 5-litre V8, powering the back axle through a 10-speed auto gearbox. Yip, 10! But I’ll get to that…

The cabin, like most GTs, is a 2+2 arrangement with a pair of deliciously structured (read comfortable) seats up front and two tiny (read unusable) perches at the back. Better to consider the rear seats extra cargo capacity. Perfect for a pair of extra weekend togs, but definitely not human beings.

Lexus has embarked upon a new level of craftsmanship with the LC, and after each one’s built at the Motomachi factory in Japan (the same plant where the LFA supercar was assembled) it’s given a once-over by a “Takumi” detail inspector, who checks for the tiniest paint blemishes, frayed stitches or any other imperfection.

Inside you’ll find a gear selector with leather sourced only from the nape of a cow’s neck, so it matches the lever’s curvature without a wrinkle. Fifty seat designs were discarded before Lexus settled on the perfect shape.

The instrument cluster is, of course, fully digital and, like the LFA, gets a prominent centre ring flanked by individual TFT displays for trip and vehicle data.

Detail levels are matched outside. The LC’s roof is made from glossy carbonfibre, the inners and unders of the doors and boot lid of exposed carbon laminate, and the headlights are formed from three LED light pods which appear to hover behind an intergalactic triangular lens.

The LC500 launched in South Africa last week, and in true local Lexus fashion it comes in one package only. The only choice is colour, of which there are 11 with three interior options.

We get the highest possible spec, which includes a 13-speaker Mark Levinson sound system, continuously variable steering, a limited slip differential, 21-inch wheels and the carbon roof instead of panoramic glass.

The LC’s ability to alter between silent cruiser and rowdy racer is remarkable. It’s like a tip-toeing ballerina and a beer-chugging Nascar hooligan all in one, and at last week’s Cape-based media launch I got the chance to experience both.

A brief trundle through the speed hump and pedestrian-riddled town of Franschhoek exposed the car’s softer side. Here it hummed along with only its outrageous bodywork doing the shouting, and with its drive mode set to Comfort, and my right foot set to 5% lock, the LC500 was a cuddly puppy dog. A whisper-quiet tourer with a pillowy ride.

But then Franschhoek Pass happened and the big Lexus showed me its alter ego. Engage Sport+ and the thing transforms into a snarling pitbull, hellbent on mauling hairpins and ripping asphalt.

Below 2 000 rpm that big V8 operates in inconspicuous mode, but give it some room to breathe and its vocal chords do their best God of Thunder impression. It’s loud.

Each gear change, up or down, is met with a satisfying snap or bang, and even if we know that 10-speed box is there to keep revs at optimum efficiency levels when cruising, it offers a nice musical side effect.

Zero to 100km/h happens in a claimed 4.7 seconds, and that’s without the help of launch control.

Top speed is set at 270km/h. Power delivery is immediate, as it should be without turbos, and though it doesn’t have quite the firepower of a force-fed 650i (let alone an M6) it certainly makes up for it in noise. And then some.

Pricing is set at R1 865 100.