On this episode of Ignition
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:06 This week on Ignition, the first fun Lexus.
00:09 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:26 Initially, the ISF seemed like a bizarre step for Lexus to take.
00:29 Here is a company known for producing quiet, smooth,
00:33 and let's face it, boring cars for older folk.
00:35 Then they take a 5 liter V8, put it
00:37 in their smallest rear wheel drive chassis,
00:39 and target directly the M3 and C63.
00:43 That's strange.
00:44 And when Lexus did it, it created an understandable
00:46 amount of doubt.
00:47 Here's the thing, though.
00:48 I believe that history will look back on this car
00:50 and see it as the turning point, not just for Lexus,
00:53 but for Toyota as a whole.
00:55 So before the ISF, Toyota sports cars in the US
00:58 seemed just like a dead concept.
01:00 All we had was the Toyota Celica and the MR2 Spyder.
01:04 The Supra was long dead, and the LFA seemed like a fairy tale.
01:07 But then Toyota got a new CEO.
01:09 And not just any CEO.
01:10 They got Akio Toyota, who's a massive fan of racing
01:13 and who has said that Toyota needs
01:15 to start making cars that are more fun to drive.
01:18 This ISF was what he was talking about.
01:20 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:35 For one, you have 416 horsepower.
01:37 And that makes for some pretty impressive acceleration.
01:40 [TIRES SQUEALING]
01:47 0 to 60 takes just 4 and 1/2 seconds.
01:50 And that beep when you hit red line,
01:52 you kind of get a Pavlovian response to it.
01:54 It's like more power, more sound as you accelerate.
01:57 [TIRES SQUEALING]
02:00 The quarter mile flies by 12.9 seconds
02:03 at just over 111 miles an hour.
02:07 You also have some sticky Michelin tires
02:09 working some pretty large brakes.
02:10 [TIRES SQUEALING]
02:15 Our best stop from 60 took 105 feet.
02:18 [TIRES SQUEALING]
02:23 The thing is, with great power and respectable braking
02:25 performance is unless you have a chassis or a suspension that
02:29 puts it all together, it really doesn't matter.
02:31 Fortunately, this ISF has both.
02:34 It is an absolute blast to drive.
02:37 [TIRES SQUEALING]
02:40 Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!
02:41 [LAUGHS]
02:43 Once you enter a corner, it communicates very clearly
02:47 when you're approaching the limits of adhesion.
02:49 And it tells you just what you need
02:51 to do to get into an oversteer, which is really fun.
02:55 But also, from there, you can know exactly what you
02:58 need to do to maintain your angle
03:00 or do a big sideways like that, which
03:03 isn't fast, but a lot of fun.
03:05 Braking feel is just fantastic.
03:08 Throttle control is very nice.
03:10 And the sound is really rewarding once you finally
03:13 get on the straight and can lay into it.
03:17 You can avoid driving like a hooligan, though.
03:19 This thing will put down a very impressive lap time.
03:22 This was about as fast around the figure 8
03:24 as the last M3 we tested, which is very impressive considering
03:28 its horsepower shortcoming and the fact
03:32 that you just want to power slide everywhere.
03:34 Again, woo!
03:35 [LAUGHS]
03:37 Maybe it's too easy, but this thing
03:38 has come out of every corner sideways.
03:41 But it does it in such a controllable fashion.
03:44 You never feel like you're going to end up backwards anywhere.
03:47 You just feel like, yeah, I can power slide now.
03:49 That seems like a good idea.
03:50 Yeah, I'll just do that.
03:50 That's fun.
03:51 It's OK.
03:52 You never feel like you're going to overstay your welcome
03:54 with this car's limits.
03:55 You can hang out, meet the family, meet the wife,
03:58 the kids.
04:00 It's all fun.
04:01 Wee!
04:02 [LAUGHS]
04:04 [TIRES SCREECHING]
04:05 [CLICK]
04:06 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:10 You know, when the ISF first came out,
04:17 it was kind of seen as the third place
04:19 finisher behind the C63 and the M3.
04:23 But since then, Lexus have made some pretty crucial
04:26 improvements to this car.
04:27 They've upgraded the suspension.
04:28 They've given it a limited slip differential.
04:30 And I feel that those changes transform this car
04:33 into a serious competitor.
04:36 You know, I don't envy the person
04:37 who has to choose between this, the C63, or the M3,
04:41 because they're all such very good cars.
04:43 And I can understand why you'd go either way.
04:45 Personally, I lean towards the M3.
04:47 But I don't understand why someone would choose the ISF.
04:50 I mean, it's just so bonkers from Lexus.
04:53 I mean, Lexus is a company you associate with the ES and the GS
04:56 and so on.
04:57 And then there's this F model, which
04:59 is just completely opposite of anything you'd ever expect.
05:02 It's super surprising.
05:03 It's like the quiet accountant in your office
05:07 gets in a bar fight.
05:08 And then you find out later he's secretly
05:10 been training in MMA for years.
05:12 It's that kind of surprise that this car does.
05:15 And beyond that, it's genuinely a fun car to drive.
05:19 We spent all day at the test track beating on it.
05:22 But even here, when we're not on the limits,
05:24 when we're just cruising on a mountain road,
05:27 it's communicative.
05:28 It's flexible.
05:30 There's a ton of torque.
05:31 The sound is just phenomenal.
05:33 It's really rewarding.
05:35 And it's just a blast to drive.
05:40 Lexus has done a great job with the inputs
05:42 on this car, the steering wheel, the pedal feel.
05:44 And I know it's good because I'm not thinking about it.
05:46 When it's just progressive and linear
05:48 and does everything you expect, you
05:49 don't have to concentrate on it so much when you're
05:51 charging up a mountain road.
05:52 You can just enjoy the drive that much more.
05:54 I love the power delivery of this V8.
05:59 And I love watching the needle climb
06:01 through that gigantic center-mounted tack there.
06:04 One thing, though, is that the ride is just a touch stiff.
06:07 The dampers seem to be just a little bit stiffer
06:10 than I'd like.
06:11 But if that's giving you the ride that this thing has
06:14 and the control this has in a corner, I'll gladly take it.
06:16 It's not much of a complaint, if any.
06:19 This is one of the first few cars
06:20 with an eight-speed transmission.
06:21 It got a lot of flack for that.
06:23 Who needs eight gears when you're driving along the road?
06:25 Well, now you get it in a Chrysler.
06:27 Now you get it in a Hyundai.
06:28 And it actually makes sense, because six gear is one-to-one.
06:32 Seventh and eighth are overdrive.
06:33 And that means one through five can be very close to each other.
06:37 And they allow you, when they're that close, to keep the engine
06:40 on boil pretty much any time you want it to be.
06:43 I'm cruising along right now in fourth.
06:45 And it's kind of crazy to know I have four more gears to go up.
06:50 You know, it's tough to decide what I like more,
06:52 the way this thing drives or the story of this car's
06:55 development.
06:56 This was built largely in a skunkworks kind of fashion
06:59 by a very small group of engineers
07:01 working mostly after hours.
07:04 In fact, the chief designer of this car
07:06 had his hand in the original Toyota Supra.
07:09 This car was a labor of love.
07:11 And that makes it all the more special.
07:13 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:16 [ENGINE REVVING]
07:20 The ISF has led a group of new sports cars
07:37 from Toyota to production.
07:40 The LFA followed this car, as did the GT86, or Scion FRS,
07:44 or whatever you want to call it.
07:46 Rumor is there will be a new ISF, too.
07:48 But this one here, this first generation,
07:51 on top of being extremely fun to drive,
07:53 it also has the opportunity to be
07:55 remembered as the harbinger of good, fun-to-drive cars
07:58 at Toyota.
07:59 All we ask is that they keep at it.
08:01 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:05 [ENGINE REVVING]
08:08 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:12 Fly.
08:21 Pretty fly for a white guy.
08:25 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:33 [ENGINE REVVING]
08:36 [SCREAMS]
08:45 Did we get-- no.
08:46 He's good.
08:46 He just tucked-- woo.
08:47 Freaking squirrels, man.
08:50 (dramatic music)
08:52 [BLANK_AUDIO]