There was always something wrong with all the earlier attempts by Lexus to make a BMW 3 Series. First, the IS 300 came onto the market with rear-wheel drive but an automatic. Then it got a manual but came with an intrusive stability program you couldn’t turn off. When the stronger 306-hp, 3.5-liter IS 350 came out, it again had an automatic but no stick.

Now, the mighty IS F, so powerful it doesn’t even get a number in its name, comes with a monstrous V8 and rear-wheel drive, and while it does have an eight-speed automatic transmission, it is such a good automatic transmission that you don’t even care that there is no manual. And the stability program comes with an off button that now, finally, stays the F off.

But first, what is an IS F, anyway? You may remember the one-off, V8-powered IS 430 made four years ago by racer-turned-engineering-guru Rod Millen (“Muscle Car Mania Hits Lexus,” AW, Dec. 22, 2003). At that time, the biggest sports sedan in the Lexus lineup was the 3.0-liter straight-six IS 300. Dropping a big V8 into this relatively small car followed the age-old hot-rodder engine-swap formula that gave us the Pontiac GTO and a host of other very fun cars.

One year later, an engineer in Japan, Yukihiko Yaguchi, approached product planners with his idea for the IS F. Breaking with tradition, wherein product planning does all the thinking up of ideas, product planning gave Yaguchi the green light. But no budget.

So Yaguchi recruited 100 to 300 of what the Lexus press department called “speed-crazy rogue engineers” and went to work. By begging, borrowing and cajoling everything from wind-tunnel time to finite element analysis, he eventually built what you see here.

Let’s talk about that 5.0-liter V8. Yaguchi didn’t want a turbo-charger to get power, because it lacked linearity. He laughed out loud when we asked if a V10 would fit. Yes, it would, he said, but it’s way too expensive and heavy. The engine he started with was the 4.6-liter V8 from the LS and the GS. Working with Yamaha, Yaguchi’s team stroked it a quarter-inch to get the displacement up to 5.0 liters. Adding the stroke made it less undersquare, giving it inherently better low-end torque. Improve-ments to the heads by Yamaha gave it high-end horsepower. It now produces 416 hp and more than 371 lb-ft of torque, numbers that make the old IS engine look like a weed whacker.

It has many unique features not found on the LS and the GS, such as dual air intakes, coolers for engine oil and trans fluid and even a cylinder-head scavenge pump so all the engine oil won’t get stuck up in the heads during high-g cornering. There are two fuel injectors per cylinder—one more or less normal port injector and one high-pressure direct injector. Below 3200 rpm, intake air comes from a single opening at the grille; above 3200, a second intake opens inside the engine bay to increase flow. The titanium intake valves are electrically variable on the intake side, while a hydraulic system controls the steel exhaust valves. Valve lift, while high, stays the same. The changes allow for a redline of 6800 rpm.


Aft of the V8 is what Lexus says is the world’s first eight-speed sport direct-shift transmission. It, too, starts life as the unit from the LS. In this application, the torque converter locks in second through eighth gears in manual mode for more efficiency. The paddle-shift manual mode holds each gear to the 6800-rpm redline. Upshifts take a tenth of a second, the fastest for a production transmission, Lexus says. Downshifts come with a blip of the throttle for smoothness.

The new car weighs 3780 pounds, only 250 more than the standard IS, so there is more than enough power to weight. Balance is 54/46 front/rear.

To get the most from the powertrain, Yaguchi tightened up the suspension throughout. First, he lowered the whole ride by an inch and stiffened the front springs by 9 percent over the IS 350 and the rears by 50 percent. Shocks and bushings are much firmer, antiroll bars substantially thicker. The rear suspension control arms are unique to the IS F to get the most from the forged 19-inch aluminum wheels. Tires are 168-mph-Y-rated Michelin Pilot Sport PS2s or Bridgestone Potenzas, 225/40 front and 255/35 rear, on 19-inch wheels. Brembo disc brakes are 14.2 inches in front with six-piston calipers and 13.6 inches in back with two-piston calipers.

Here’s the part where Lexus finally got it: Vehicle Dynamics Integrated Management (VDIM), which keeps you from killing yourself and your car, or makes it a little harder, can be turned off. You can finally do donuts all day long. A mode switch has normal, sport and snow settings. The sport mode increases effort and weight of the electric power steering, raises shift points in the transmission, quickens the throttle response rate and allows more lateral movement before VDIM steps in.

The goal was not to make a BMW M3, Yaguchi said, though many people will see it as such.

“The M3 is fun for a really good driver, but if you’re not a really good driver, it’s not fun,” he said. “This is a car everyone can enjoy; with this car, your skill level doesn’t matter.”

Thank goodness. They were about to turn us loose on Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca. At first, we rode with instructors from the Skip Barber School. Reminded that you actually accelerate into turns three and six and brake a little in nine and a lot going into 11, we set out on our own.

It performed exactly as advertised. It was safe, fun and, even with VDIM off, still stable. Power was prodigious and delivered in a linear fashion. At Laguna Seca, we were able to use everything from third to sixth gear, with a few attempts to get down into second when we entered turn four too slowly.

Coming over the terrifying crest under the bridge at start/ finish, the car remained stable, despite the loss of some of the gravity it had on the rest of the course. Braking was stable, too, especially going into one, where you don’t want anything funny to happen. The hard-core will miss the ultimate truth of an all-out sport suspension. This one is softer than the previous M3’s, for instance. But it is a tradeoff we could live with.

Upshifts were indeed impressive, though we didn’t time them to the tenth of a second. Banging the paddle shifters up along the main straight, we felt like Helio Castro freaking Neves. And the way the throttle blipped on downshifts, we felt like Schuey himself, though his and everyone’s trannies nowadays do everything for them.


Body roll in corners was not a problem—in fact, it was almost unnoticeable—and the tires never seemed to let go. We saw others powersliding coming out of turn 11, but we never got the rear end out of line, even while trying to figure out how much braking to add on the downhill left-hander of turn nine.

Later that day, we took an IS F over Laureles Grade and up G16 for quite a distance, over turns that tightened up suddenly and on a road surface that could use a few fresh layers of asphalt to be brought up to FIA standards. Although we dodged the worst of the bumps and holes, we couldn’t miss them all, and the IS F did not shudder or jar us when we whacked them.

It is a car you can drive comfortably at Laguna Seca or to work. As Yaguchi said, your skill level doesn’t matter.

So, what is the market level for the IS F?

“This is definitely not aimed at anyone buying our cars now,” said then-Lexus vice president Jim Farley.

The average ES buyer is 61 years old. The IS buyer is in the low 40s. We figure the IS F will pull that average down a lot.

Lexus cleverly chose to reveal its IS F just before BMW revealed its M3. Or was that pure coincidence? In either case, everyone’s stories about the Lexus IS F will come out before everyone’s other stories about the M3. This will allow people to view the IS F separately as a sports sedan unto itself. In such context, it is an unbridled success. Against the M3, we’ll have to wait and see.

Anyone in the market for a thrilling sports sedan very soon will have more choices than a cute girl at MIT. In addition to the 416-hp IS F, you can peruse the coming M3 sedan’s 414-hp 4.0-liter, the Audi RS4’s 420-hp 4.2 and the mighty 457-hp 6.2-liter in the Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG. All of them have four doors and V8s driving the rear wheels (and the front wheels, in the case of the RS4 quattro). Is this a great time to be alive (and with a $60,000-or-so budget) or what?

Actual prices, of course, will come out closer to the car’s launch, which is scheduled for early 2008. The biggest news may not be just this IS F but a whole bunch of future F’s.

“We are looking at this launch from a whole branding standpoint,” said Farley.

That could mean accessories for the IS 250 and 350. If we had to guess, well, we do know the IS platform is derived from the Lexus GS sedan . . .

It is a car you can drive comfortably at Laguna Seca or to work. As Yaguchi said, your skill level doesn’t matter.

I'm referring to those who seek pure enjoyment from feeling every bump through the steering wheel and the vibration of the drivetrain through the shifter in their hands. Fine, you can get 90% of the experience w/o a manual tranny. But I can't believe you guys are actually trying to tell me that the experience is equal either way.

The exterior of the IS-F has been slightly modified to separate it from lesser IS models, but the design seems to be a bit out of proportion on the front of the car — the front overhang seems long and appears to droop over the front wheels.
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Apart from some unique surface materials, the interior of the IS-F isn't much different from the normal IS range.
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Overall, Lexus has created a nice performance package in the IS-F, but the car will likely fall short in the minds of hard core enthusiasts.