A few weeks ago I surprised a number of you by warning my fellow euro diehards not to under estimate the upcoming Lexus IS-F. At that time I looked at the facts as we knew them, and realized that Lexus had an ace in the hole with the 8 speed transmission. At that time I ran the figures through a program that theoretically gave me performance parameters. Amazingly so, it only took a few days for my predictions to be put to the acid test, and lucky for me they rang pretty close to true.
As we all know Lexus’ first serious shot at the uber sedan market fell very close to the mark, but not quite at the top where the fan base expected it to be. Does this make it any less of a worthy competitor? Not in the least if you ask me. You have to realize that whenever the IS-F trailed in acceleration or other parameters compared to its brethren, it was well within the margins of driver error. It was that close. But you know, that doesn’t help much when it comes down to bragging rights, after you have to lead in most everything.
Enter the rumored IS-F/R., Lexus second salvo, and an even more potent one at that. On the surface the improvements may not seem like much. A 12hp increase and a mere 6 ft/lbs of torque don’t seem like much. But the real performance enhancing feature is to be the use of carbon fiber to reduce the curb weight by an estimated 220 lbs. Now this, my friends is another ace in the hole. Our buddies over at Lexus have done their homework again.
Don’t think it adds up? Well back to my trusty calculations again to give us a look into the future. Let’s review my predictions on the original IS-F and the real world averages of the first tests.
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Lexus IS-F Test Results
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Seconds
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Seconds
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Seconds
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MPH
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0-60
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0-100
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1/4 mile
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Trap Speed
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Motor Trend
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4.70
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10.50
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13.00
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111.70
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Car And Driver Magazine
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4.20
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9.80
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12.70
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114.00
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Edmunds Inside Line
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4.80
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N/A
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13.20
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109.00
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Overall Averages
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4.57
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10.15
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12.97
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111.57
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Seconds
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Seconds
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Seconds
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MPH
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0-60
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0-100
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1/4 mile
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Trap Speed
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AutoSpies Estimates
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4.40
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10.50
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13.00
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110.10
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Delta
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0.17
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-0.35
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-0.03
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1.47
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Error Margin
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3.65%
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-3.45%
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-0.26%
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1.31%
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Ok, this nothing really knew to many of you, because we posted it a while back. But now we take the hp increase and weight reduction into account for the IS-F/R as we know it and this is what we get.
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Seconds
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Seconds
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Seconds
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MPH
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0-60
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0-100
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1/4 mile
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Trap Speed
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IS-F/R
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4.20
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10.20
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12.70
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112.90
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Adjust for Error Margin
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0.15
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-0.35
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-0.03
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1.48
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Overall Perfomance
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4.35
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9.85
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12.67
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114.38
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You may note that I took my known margin of error from the original computations compared to real world testing, and adjusted the performance in an effort to reflect known deviations.
Now we see how it all adds up. The horsepower increase only made a 1/10th of a second improvement in the ¼ mile. But factor in the weight loss and you have another story all together.
If the IS-F/R becomes a reality, and I believe it may, due to the relatively low cost to make it happen. This will place the IS-F/R squarely at the top of the pack in this segment. Actually depending on the driver it could eclipse the mighty Mercedes C63 AMG and leave both the M3 and the RS4 wondering what happened.
So how do you like those apples, could I be correct again?