Stunning saloon sounds extra sweet with £4,000 upgrade

CARS can be three things to me…

For the fun of driving, I want something noisy, raw, blindingly fast, lightweight and preferably rearwheel drive.

Thing is, you have to be in the mood. The weather has to be right and it usually starts with an alarm call at daft o’clock to ensure the roads are quiet. And no passengers. Absolutely no passengers.

Then there’s the practical side of my motoring. Being into motorbikes (and track days) this obviously equates to a van or a pick-up with a decent sized load-bed.

I love driving vans. If you think your trendy crossover SUV gives you a commanding view of the road ahead, you clearly haven’t driven a bonkersfast Mercedes Sprinter. You can practically see into the next county.

Then there’s my switch-off-button motoring. Obviously, switching off completely would amount to a due care and attention charge. What I really mean to say is low-stress, comfortable and hushed travel.

The sort of attributes that make a mind-numbingly long motorway trip slip by, in the eye of a blink. The sort of acoustic attributes that allow you to listen to proper music properly.

And as far as I’m concerned, the new Lexus ES300h – code for executive saloon, the h standing for hybrid – ticks that box.

With a Sharpie.

Some of the assembled hacks at last week’s launch in Spain were a bit sniffy about the whole job. They banished the new ES to the ranks of raspberryslacked “Golf Gareths” and thrusting, posturing, middle management types. I shall name no names.

For sure, this isn’t the kind of car that the ardent helmsman would whip into a tail-sliding froth of tyre-smoking action. But that would be missing the point with this car. It’s front-wheel drive, for starters. And it’s more about the waft than the daft.

The new ES offers exquisite detailing and has noticeable high quality touches almost everywhere you look/feel. It offers ridiculous levels of comfort and – this is its ace point – near silence at all but full throttle up steep hills where the CVT transmission (Lexi-cog-raphy?) lets the hybrid-assisted, four-cylinder engine wail away like a banshee in need of new clutch plates.

Park a new Lexus ES (metallic blue is best) outside your local body repair shop and it’ll empty the place as they all pour out to pore over the pitch-perfect paint finish.

I’d never tire of admiring that sort of craftsmanship and I’m only an amateur paint sprayer. In sunlight the ES paint is stunning. A foot thick, I’d swear.

It’s the same inside with the dash materials, leather detailing (and stitching). The only thing I didn’t like about it was the sat-nav. It got me lost on several occasions because it’s so slow to catch up with itself in relation to real time events.

There’s an even more compelling reason to add a new 2019 ES to your wish list though. And it’s got nothing to do with economy, benefit in kind, CO2 figures or cabin and boot space.

No. It’s a little box you tick in the showroom and it’s labelled the Takumi pack – a £4,000 luxury. Available on the F-Sport, it gives you a head-up display, a 12.3-inch LCD screen and a powered rear sun shade and boot lid with kick-toopen facility.

Oh, I forgot the mention the main reason for ticking that four-grand box.

It’s the 17-speaker Mark Levinson surround sound audio system. It’s the perfect soulmate for a car so quiet.

This other-worldly system delivers thundering bass response, crisp mid and high-end tones and such an immersive experience nothing will ever sound the same again.

That, right there, is the reason you all want a Lexus ES.