The third player in our Super Sedan Freeway is the Lexus IS-F. Now Lexus has taken Mercedes Benz and BMW's performance Sedan formula and applied to it's IS mid sized Sports Sedan. It's got a 5 liter V8, 416 Horse Power, and it's backed by an 8 speed automatic transmission, great fun to play with those steering wheel pedals. Let's see how it does out here at Reno Fernley up against the two German competitors.
The Lexus is on the roll down the front straight away, good front straight away speed for all three of the cars because they have plenty of V8 torque. Now it is in this first, second, third turn complex that the driver commented that the electronic steering didn't have quite the feel as the others. It was a little bit imprecise. He wasn't always sure quite where he was at in the turn and maybe just a little less precision than the other. Plenty of torque coming out of the curves, no problem there and again that was the case with all three of our players.
The Lexus is pretty good in transitions, and not much nose dive either under braking pretty stable chassis. Although not quite to the level of BMW or the Mercedes. Plenty of grunt going up the hill through this complex. And quite stable on the down hill as well. Now this complex is nearly flat out, although not quite. You'll notice little braking there to stabilize the car and get ready for this next down hill run. This particular area is the second fastest area on the Fernley raceway and good speed prior to this heavy, heavy braking zone.
Little bit of scrubbing there, a little bit of slip angle as it comes out of the corner but still comes out pretty strong. But it's in those transitions you see a little wiggle of the wheel there that the electronic steering are widened up and the driver wasn't always quite sure of which way the wheels are pointed and he wasn't able to hit his turn in and braking points quite as precisely as with the other cars.
Don't you love the sound of that V8. There is a real muscle car style 5 liter V8 no doubt about it. Edlo (ph) said this car was a four door hot ride. Little bit of slips as he comes out of that right hander. And you'll notice he is right on the Rev meter right there and that might have cost the few tense to hit the rev meter a couple of times as we are through the last corner and down the straight in the Lexus IS-F.
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