The Lexus LC500 Coupe Review | The Best That Japan Has To Offer

Lexus is sort of a love hate for me. I love how reliable and luxurious they are, but I hate how they don't prioritize performance. However, I've always been a fan of this thing, the Lexus LC500. So this is Lexus's LC500. It's what many consider to be the Japanese automaker's flagship sports car, and I have a tendency to agree with that. But today we're going to find out why. To start the car, just hit the ignition. There is a bit of a lengthy boot up segment on the screen, and though it looks quite fancy, it could get old after a while. Regardless, the cabin experience already feels slightly more premium than the GSF that I tested. To get the car into gear, it's a little different. You have to push to the left and then pull down for drive. The driving mode selector is up here near the cluster and that's pretty unique and I like that. To my surprise, the LC500 can be optioned with the rear wheel steering, but it's actually very minimal. I'm not sure of the exact angle, but it's probably something like 1 or 2 degrees at most. It's not a big car though. Like most full size grand touring coupes in this segment it's at a modest 187 inches long, which gives it the benefit of having a usable backseat that can definitely fit a forward facing baby seat, but still be small enough to have some nimbleness. Comfort mode is a little stiffer than I would have imagined it to be, but it could be in parts of the aftermarket wheels that are on this car, but throttle response and steering is still on point though. Since this car has a cat back exhaust, it doesn't have any valves to regulate, so it's always pretty loud when you get on the power. The gear changes are also dramatically smoother in this mode. Sorry about all the crazy flares on future episodes. I'll avoid shooting the POV part during this time of the day. Anyway. The LC500 is one of those cars that is definitely much better looking in person than in photos, and it's already decently photogenic in my opinion. But the car in the flesh definitely has a lot more road presence and I would go as far as to say it's kind of exotic. This particular LC is an Inspiration Series model and the color is called Flare Yellow and all those added aero bits and ground effects are aftermarket, including the wing. Normally I would be against it, but it's actually kind of tasteful on this car. The interior color combo is very unconventional with the yellow alcantara on dark blue leather and then the white seats. I'm honestly surprised that something like this came out of a Lexus factory because usually they're pretty conservative Right off the bat. Though, I'm a huge fan of the steering wheel and how thick it is. The metal paddles are right up my alley and significantly better than the already good ones that you'd find on a GS or RC F. They definitely have the Germans beat here. Like I said earlier, I find that the exhaust is a bit loud in comfort with the aftermarket setup, but it's probably because I'm getting old and growing out of those days. I'd imagine that with the stock exhaust, highway cruising or long distance driving would be really enjoyable, but I think we're about to find out exactly why this thing really has the exhaust in the first place. As mentioned, to get it into Sport plus, we twist the drive selector switch twice. That changes the instrument cluster as well, and I like the look of this one a lot more. You can hit this button and the tachometer shifts over and gives you a gear selection indicator. Very neat, but for now we'll leave it in the default one. To get the best performance with the paddles, you need to physically switch it into manual mode. Otherwise just tapping the paddles only gives you a semi automatic experience and the shifts won't be as aggressive. I love everything about Sport plus, though it's stiff but not much more than comfort. The steering is significantly heavier and tighter and that is appreciated. But man, the cornering is wonderful for what this. Gosh, those downshifts are absolutely fire, especially with the paddles. I don't think I can drive this car in any other mode after this, even though I might have to. It's been a while since I've had the pleasure of instant NA power delivery. Each stab of the throttle is instantaneous and it's truly delightful. You can't see what I'm doing here, but there's a button down there to deploy the spoiler manually. I was about to switch into eco mode, but nah, not yet. I'm having way too much fun. So here are the H Vac controls. I like the simplicity in the design, the switchgear feels quality, but let me talk more about this annoying ass shifter. There's like a 5050 chance that you actually select the right thing, but that just might be me being weird. And then once you drive it some more, you'll get used to the mechanics. Speaking of which, let's do some more driving. Yeah, that's if I can ever get it back into drive though. Okay, there we go finally. Overall, even though the car doesn't have that much power, it has the ability to break loose in first and second gear. It's a bit chilly out today, but in my experience, 470 horses is still enough to do some damage if the car is light enough. Anyway, this is my favorite part. I love the way the car sounds when it bounces off the limber like that and I love that I can just upshift immediately. Lots of other sports cars tend to get stuck for a little bit after the limiter bounce. I just can't get over how good this thing actually sounds on an exhaust. I feel like I'm in a race car all the time in this mode. I wanted to mention this before during the. So the car sounded fast, but was it actually fast? Even before I saw the numbers I knew it wasn't. The thing about Lexus is that they prioritize reliability over all out performance and I used to criticize them for that, but as I got older I realized that in terms of 60130 the car posted a lukewarm 13.30 seconds and what that really means is that the lesser GS F is actually faster than the flagship sports car from the brand. Unfortunately in terms of other cars though, the LC is almost as fast as the new S Class, but it's significantly slower than a But before we get into the runs, let's go over the car specs for a little bit. The LC500 is a 2.2luxury GT coupe that competes with really high end stuff like The Aston Martin DB11S class coupes and the BMW 8 series and possibly even the Audi RS5 Sens have a true two door GT. It's not the cheapest of the bunch and it's definitely not the most powerful, but I think it's one of the most elegant looking. It's powered by the Same naturally aspirated 5 liter V8 that you would normally find in the GSF and the RC F sports cars. In this platform though, it makes a modest 471 horsepower and 398 pounds of torque. But the cool thing is that it's mated to a 10 speed automatic which is indeed a lot of gears, its front engine rear drive. So it's got a classic layout that I'm pretty familiar with. By the way, I'm estimating that the catback adds about 10 to 15 horsepower, so correct me if I'm wrong there. The flip side is that it's heavier than I would want it to be. For something like this you'd expect it to come in at sub 2 tons, but unfortunately the LC500 weighs in at a hefty 4340 pounds which is about 300 pounds heavier than the GSF and 600 pounds more than a V8 DB11. Regardless, it's got a pretty healthy 9.1Power to Weight ratio with a base MSRP of about 93 grand and being easily specable to over 100. The LC isn't cheap, but it's still a bargain when you compare it to stuff like an S560 or the M850i. Anyway, let's check out what it sounds like from the outside. Yellow is pretty low on my list for colors on a car, but it does look really nice on the LC500. I would personally have gone with the Nori green, but the flare yellow is definitely a more flashy option. Anyway, since we're short on time and the pavement is cold we won't do the handling test, but we will do the full half mile acceleration run down the Runway. So let's get started. Mustang GT and our XX M50 which is precisely why I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger on one in terms of the standing half mile. And this is where the big hits play. The lexus trapped about 135.5 and that's not too bad. Actually it's got more top end than our XXM50 by a hair, but otherwise it still gets walked by entry level German sports sedans like the RS3 or even a base X3M which makes about the same power. As much as I respect Lexus for what it is, there is a point in time where the lack of performance is no longer acceptable and I think for a $100,000 sports coupe you really need to do a little better than this. But if you want to see more times and metrics on this car or any other car, check out the fastest link in the description below. For now we're going to move on to the final thoughts. So I'm not going to bash this car as much as I did the GSF because one I've matured a little bit and two this car serves a completely different purpose. I initially saw the GSF as a mid sized German luxury sports sedan competitor and being Lexus and also an F trim car, I wanted it to take down stuff like the BMW M5 but frankly it wasn't even faster than a pre LCI M550. People can argue all day about reliability and NA power, but like I said, there's a point in time when being slow and reliable is no longer desirable, and at that point you might as well be buying a camry. But the LC500 is not an F trim car and it's not designed to fight any big boy toys. It's designed to look sexy, drive sexy, and make you feel sexy, and in that regard it checks off all the right boxes. However, I am very disappointed to hear that they are not making it an LCF model because that car would be an absolute Aston Martin killer and it would be 100% the car that I would buy right now. And regardless of what I said earlier about the color combo, the interior layout has really grown on me and the exterior has always been very attractive. Until recently. I've honestly haven't seen too many of these things on the road and that makes it pretty special. At the end of the day, the Nissan GTR might be the fastest production car that Japan has produced for the U.S. but to me, the Lexus LC500 is the best luxury sports car that Japan has to offer. I hope you guys enjoyed this video as much as I did making it. 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