Wanted: a V8 engine, please
A back-to-back drive with its wild V8 cousin emphasises just how modestly powered our hybrid Lexus is – and how much potential is lurking within.
I knew it was in there somewhere. Our long-term-test Lexus RC 300h feels like there’s a great driver’s car trapped inside it – you can feel the inherent handling balance and the underlying stiff structure it’s allied to – but it’s smothered by the unresponsive hybrid powertrain.
You waft in a state of anaesthesia in the RC 300h, relaxed but not particularly engaged with the driving process. Which is fine – and quite calming, actually. But if you do stumble across a great driving road, it doesn’t have an awful lot in its dynamic locker to help you enjoy it, or to back up its Olympically sporty looks.
The only other RC model currently offered is the polar opposite: the RC F packs a very much unhybridised 5.0-litre V8 with 458bhp and starts from £62,900 to the 300h’s early-£40k. Where the RC 300h is a hybrid alternative to the BMW 4-series and Audi A5, the RC F is a fullblown M4/S5 rival.
Except it’s not blown but naturally aspirated. Lexus being the oddball kind of company it is, it’s flying the flag for turbo-free V8 engines, and this one has plenty going for it, including titanium valves and a fantastic barrelchested sound with a metallic edge under acceleration. Said acceleration doesn’t knock your socks quite so comprehensively off as an M4, with a bit of a dead spot from low revs, but once into its stride it’s certainly not slow.
The RC F’s nicely balanced during cornering too, with handling just the right side of tailhappy, helped by an electronically controlled locking differential. The eight-speed automatic gearbox isn’t the most responsive, but it’s more engaging than the RC 300h’s CVT.
The interior is broadly similar to our long-termer’s, with additional swathes of scarlet leather and glossy carbonfibre, and some mysterious extra buttons, including launch control and settings for that torque vectoring diff. And there are extra F-specific graphics including a g-force meter (which you probably shouldn’t look at while you’re driving) and a real-time torque split at the wheels (which is so mesmerising it’s hard not to). You sit in deeper sports seats than in the 300h, yet they’re curiously less supportive – our long-termer cradles me better than the RC F.
Just like our car (which,
It doesn’t have an awful lot in its dynamic locker to help you enjoy a great road
confusingly, is in F Sport trim – some of the styling cues of the F, without the extra go), the RC F is a leftfield kind of car that is a wilfully different choice, and all the more likeable for it. I’m not sure I could quite bring myself to part with more than £60k for one but I feel more drawn to its standalone character than its German rivals.
I missed it after it had gone, just as I know I’ll miss my RC 300h, which is soon to depart the CAR fleet. And I now know it really is capable of a driving experience to match its modern muscle car styling – it just takes an old-school V8 engine to help unlock it.