As this author was flying westward from Miami, Florida to Monterey, California for the official Lexus IS F Press Preview on Wednesday 24 October, Lexus proclaimed the official end of a Press Embargo affecting all things Lexus IS F. Suddenly, a torrential floodgate of new information, specifications and driving impressions was unleashed. To everyone's credit, there were no significant leaks on this one (versus, say, the Nissan GT-R launch).
The official
Toyota/Lexus/Scion North American Pressroom got the ball rolling with five separate IS F-related Press Releases. The first of these has the self-explanatory
The Lexus IS F 8-Speed Sport Direct Shift Transmission title, and is a 5-page PDF document that serves as a basic primer on the IS F's game-changing 8-speed automatic transmission. Next comes the also obvious
2008 Lexus IS F Preliminary Specifications and Features 8-page PDF.
The third article, titled
The Lexus Formula, tells us that the "F" stands for many things. As these excerpts from the Press Release tell us: "Toyota Chairman Eiji Toyoda challenged his most trusted corporate officers and advisors to create a vehicle that would serve as a flagship. Because of the size of the American market, the car would be designed with American tastes in mind.
So that's what they set out to do. They took the challenge so seriously, and so literally, in fact, that thinking in English, the language of the car's intended market, they assigned the code name "F," with a circle around it, to the project – with the "F" standing, of course, for "flagship."
The first vehicle to be completed was known as the "F1", or "Flagship One." This of course was the LS 400...
So it is that in addition to standing for "flagship," the "F" came to symbolize a vehicle that conceived, designed and developed using Lexus' special "flair."
And now, it's come to symbolize even more than that. It's come to symbolize a separate brand designation within Lexus. In a move that was telegraphed by the appearance of the LF-A concept car, the first production vehicle to wear the "F" as a formal part of its identification is the IS-F, a carefully planned and engineered vehicle that was developed by after-hours enthusiasts, and was not part of Lexus' usual deliberate development program.
To be certain performance targets were met on the IS F, it was tested at racetracks that count, at tracks that have challenge and heritage. Those test tracks include the legendary Nurburgring Nordschleife, in Germany's Eiffel Mountains; Circuit Paul Ricard, in the South of France; Circuit Zolder, in Belgium; Laguna Seca Raceway; and at Fuji Speedway, in Japan.
In fact, the "F" logo design comes directly from the shape of Turn One at Fuji Speedway, the home circuit of IS F.
The "F" might also mean "fast," or "fun," "fascinating," or "formula," suggesting a precise recipe for excellence. But as much as anything else, it's also a symbol of our "focus" on satisfying every element of the market.
Most importantly, it could also mean "finally." If it means that, it's only because it signifies our relief that there's now a serious, fire-breathing enthusiast's car that embodies all of the Lexus flagship DNA."
The fourth Lexus Pressroom article is titled
Lexus Introduces 2008 High-Performance IS F Sport Sedan and is, as its title implies, an overview on what the IS F is all about. Finally, the fifth article, titled
Irresistible Force Creates Moveable Object is a very informative write-up on the driving force behind the IS F: Chief Engineer
Yukihiko Yaguchi, who, in spite of having worked on the first and second iterations of the Lexus LS luxury sedan, the turbocharged Toyota Supra and the first Lexus GS sport sedan, describes the IS F as the car he always dreamed of creating.
Then, of course, came the onslaught of website articles from numerous automotive sites. Surely the most controversial (and negative) to the IS F fan base were two articles from
Edmunds.com. The first to appear was
Full Test: 2008 Lexus IS-F - The Cure for Lexus Performance Anxiety by Chief Road Test Editor
Chris Walton. And, today (Monday 28 October), they posted the first-ever comparison test between the Lexus IS F and one of its rivals (the Audi RS4), titled
Comparison Test: 2007 Audi RS4 vs. 2008 Lexus IS-F - Can Lexus Take Down the Germans Again? and written by Detroit Senior Editor
Daniel Pund. In keeping with what many on our site perceive as an anti-Lexus bias by
Edmunds', they proclaimed the Audi RS4 as the better of the two cars. Never having driven an Audi RS4, I can't really say with any authority if they're right or wrong. As someone who
has driven the Lexus IS F both on a racetrack and on the street, however, let me say that I'm totally baffled by
Edmunds' staffers' criticisms of the IS F's suspension as too harsh. The calibration is spot-on perfect as far as providing next-to-no body roll, exemplary handling and a firm but never unduly harsh ride. Perhaps these criticisms come with the territory when a luxury carmaker attempts to change its image and model offerings from old-mannish comfy cruisers to performance sedans developed in the world's leading racetracks. Cadillac CTS-V, anyone?
Conversely, a favorite IS-F review among the my.IS community is the one that appears on the
Winding Road "webzine". For the uninitiated, this site was founded by Thomas B. Martin III and includes numerous
Car & Driver and
Automobile alumni on their staff, such as Editor-in-Chief David E. Davis, Jr.; Editors-at-Large William Jeanes and Karl Ludvigsen; and Contributors Larry Edsall, Bruce McCall, P.J. O'Rourke and Lawrence Ulrich. It is a very intelligent hybrid between a beautiful, upscale car magazine and a website. Their review, titled
One for the Car Guys - Lexus comes full circle with the IS-F and written by
Jim McCraw, with photography by
Richard Prince and video by
Jonathan R. Dee, was such a pleasure to read
and view that, following the advice of several members of our community in
an IS-F Forum thread started by 7msynthetic, this author signed up for a free 3-year subscription to
Winding Road.
Among other reviews of the Lexus IS F are
First Test: 2008 Lexus IS F - Naughty by nature: Polite, upstanding Lexus uses the F word by
Arthur St. Antoine of
Motor Trend;
Car & Driver's Short Take Road Test subtitled
Fuji’s Firebomb: New IS F is fast, fun, and in many ways quite familiar;
The Car Connection's article by
Paul A. Eisenstein titled
2008 Lexus IS-F Road Test - Are we sure we have the right brand? and
an AutoWeek article by Mark Vaughn.
Then we have two hot articles by
Automobile magazine's
Jason Cammisa. One of them, is to our knowledge, the
IS F's first-ever dyno run. The second one even more literally fits that description. Titled simply
2008 Lexus IS-F, it includes this hilarious passage: " 'The brakes are on fire,' says a bystander, pointing to the front wheels of my matador red Lexus IS-F as I pull into the pits after a few hard laps at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. 'No, really-they're on fire!'
And they are. Six-inch flames are shooting out of the six-piston front calipers; thick smoke is billowing out of the two-piston rears. Someone hops into the IS-F and drives off in the hope of extinguishing the fire before it ignites the whole car.
From the driver's seat, I had zero indication that the big Brembos had gotten so hot; neither pedal effort nor travel increased, and their ability to scrub off speed didn't diminish one bit. The Lexus just kept putting a smile on my face, generating huge lateral grip, demonstrating its remarkable balance, and showing off its big underhood muscle.
Lexus? Smile? Track? Seriously? Seriously."
Indeed, it's a new day for Lexus...
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