Yay for a short break from wheels.
Winter has come and I finally got a chance to try the IS300 out on the ice. My expectations for the car were not high. It is a great daily driver, and from what I have experienced on the street, very well balanced and behaved. However, on glare ice with Subaru’s breathing down my neck I expected that the biggest engine ever to come out of Japan sitting over the front axle, and the inability to power the front wheels would really leaving me wanting more from the car. Nevermind the double wide brake pedal and lack of control that lends…
The car however was fantastic. After three hard years of training the spazz out of myself it was for the most part a very smooth controllable ride where the car did basically what my will commanded. The flat engined cars I had an opportunity to drive that day, felt insanely fast in comparison, but that may largely have been the audio assault of wastegates, BOV’s and boxer rumbling. In the cabin of the Lexus, there is a soothing straight six growl, not a squeak, rattle or clunk from the suspension or interior pieces, and every set of taillights that appears in the windscreen (or often side window) slowly gets bigger and bigger until signal lights flash and a new target appears.
No I didn’t have the opportunity to chase everyone down that I wanted to… but the car was certainly not slow despite all its short coming. The only caveat is, that if I blast Daft Punk out on course as per usual Subaru attack, I end up backwards every corner.
I’ll add more after having a chance to drive the Lexus back to back versus a properly prepped WRX, after Andrew gets ours back on the road… for the third time. I expect the WRX will smash it… but not without some frustration and envy.