Lexus IS-F (2008) CAR review

The new Lexus IS-F performance flagship arrives here this April primed to take on its BMW M3 and Mercedes C63 AMG rivals. Even its £51,000 price tag (M3 £50,725, C63 AMG £52,567) puts it deep into enemy territory. It may not have the aspiration strengths played on so heavily by M Division and AMG, but that hasn't stopped Lexus wheeling out a pretty formidable rival to rock the Teutonic triumvirate.

Heritage or no, the F has the power, the performance and the looks to face up to any competitor – a track-tuned 417bhp 5.0-litre V8, an eight-speed paddleshift transmission, tweaked wishbone front and multilink rear suspension and steering and Brembo developed brakes, all wrapped in out-my-way sheetmetal.

The F doesn't photograph particularly well, tending to look oddly proportioned and slightly bulbous from some angles, but in the metal it looks mean and sharp – drink in those sinister graphite 19-inch lightweight BBS alloys, vast brake discs and six-pot calipers, the 25mm lowered ride height, blistered wheel arches, that power-domed bonnet, those four distinctively stacked exhaust pipes and the air vents behind the front wheels. It looks both restrained and menacing, a car with a real fast lane-clearing aura, although I felt horribly cheated when I looked closer and saw the four drainpipes were dummies. The real exhausts end just short of the faux pipes, and the air vents are also false. 

Tell me about the Lexus IS-F's engine

Borrowed from the LS600h, the all-aluminium engine features a raft of motorsport upgrades including cylinder heads developed by Yamaha Racing, direct injection, electrically driven variable valve timing, titanium valves, a dual air intake system, sintered conrods and a fuel surge tank and oil scavenge system to feed the engine during high speed bends. Result? Lexus’s most powerful engine – a sledgehammer that develops 417bhp at 6600rpm and 373lb ft of torque at 5200rpm. Enough muscle to rocket the 1700kg IS-F to 60mph in 4.8seconds and onto a limited 168mph top speed. Plenty of grunt to worry its rivals.

FYI, the F in the Lexus’ badge doesn’t stand for fast or the F word – it stands for Fuji, the hallowed Toyota-owned speedway circuit at the base of Mount Fuji where the IS-F’s high-speed dynamics were honed. The development and engineering was undertaken by a small skunkworks team spearhead by top Lexus engineer Yukihiko Yaguchi.

Scroll down the page to the embedded player below to see how the Lexus IS-F matches up against the BMW M3 saloon and Mercedes C63 AMG