LEXUS RCF

COME ON LEXUS,  here’s your chance. BMW’s otherwise excellent M4 hasn't quite struck gold in reviews, mostly due to its turbocharged straight-six being about as charismatic as a paving slab in a medically induced coma. And worse still for the Germans, in rumbles a Japanese rival with a naturally aspirated V8 under the bonnet to snap up downsizing deniers. If Toyota’s first senior league performance car since the barmy LFA sounds and handles even a tenth as well as its supercar sibling, it could be sayonara to BMW’s reign as darling of the hot-coupe set.

There’s a delicious irony in the fact that Toyota, a company which has done so much to advance the public acceptance of the hybrid, is now the last bastion of the unassisted performance car engine in this class. Purity and response are the buzzwords being bandied around at the launch in Monticello Motor Club, a 90-minute drive north west of New York City, and that message sounds as good to us as the backbeat coming through the quad pipes as we pick our way through SUVs that block out the sun like Manhattan skyscrapers.

There are echoes of LFA in the styling and proportions of the RCF, but the design has clear connections to a pair of Lexus concept cars, the LF LC, and LF CC. Instead of the LFA’s bland Supra esque snout, the RCF gets the current child scaring corporate spindle grille, while bulging arches cover a wide track stuffed full of forged alloy wheels. It’s certainly arresting and we’re glad to see the exhaust tips aren’ t chrome plastic bumper trims like they were on the old ISF super saloon but handsome? Only at last orders on a Saturday night.

Underneath the skin, the RCF borrows its front end from the GS saloon, mid-section from the ISC cabrio, and the rear from the current IS, although Lexus claims 70% of the suspension components are new. Where the LFA was a strict two-seater, the RCF is fun for four, though admittedly those in the back will be having substantially less fun than those in the front or those in the back of an M4,
which measures 82mm longer between axles. This is a driver’s car though, not an LS limo, so we’re heading to New York’s answer to the Ascari Race Resort to do just that.

When we reach Monticello village, a flurry of banners and signs in each garden tell us that there’s a battle going on between locals in love with the idea of having a millionaire’s racetrack playground next door and the sight of priceless cars rolling past their house, and those sick to the back of their immaculately straight, white teeth of the din drifting over the tall trees in which the club nestles. But you’d have to really hate cars not to love the sound of the RCF in full song. True, some of that sound is augmented at low speed, but you’d never know.

Based on the 5.0-litre V8 fitted to the now departed, but likely to be reincarnated shortly, ISF saloon, the RCF’s V8 is fettled to produce an additional 40kW, giving a total of 351kW of tyre twist at 7 100rpm. That’s 34kW up on the BMW’s 3.0 six. The trouble is, it needs to be nearer 54, and even then it would struggle.

You only have to compare the two kerb weights to see why. While the BMW M4 weighs 1 497 kg, or 80 kg less than its M3 coupe predecessor, the RCF busts the scales at 1 765 kg, or 65 kg more than the old ISF. And to top it off, the RCF’s 530 Nm, although surprisingly just 20 Nm short of the BMW’s maximum, peaks 3 000 rpm further round the dial. Complaining that a car capable of 4. 5 sec to 100kph doesn't get your pulse going might suggest you haven't got one to start with, but when you stomp the right pedal, the result is more tap on the shoulder than kung fu kick to the spine.

Even with eight gears to play with in the conventional auto ’box (there’s no manual alternative), Monticello’s slower corners make you yearn for more. Exiting bends that are too fast for second, you can never explode onto the next straight because you never have the kick in third at that point in the rev range to make it happen. Compounding that is the sheer heft. Actually the RCF handles pretty well, or it would do if it wasn't fighting against its own girth. The steering delivers a constant ratio and points the car with some real precision, the transition to oversteer on a trailing throttle is gentle, and the steel brakes feel meaty and are happy to take seemingly endless abuse without complaint. Lexus claims that this is a car that any driver can enjoy, and there are certainly no nasty vices.

But as we’re talking vices, the body control could be tighter and it’s too easy to let the mass overwhelm the front tyres. And whether you’ ve got the optional torque-vectoring differential we tried, or the standard Torsen limited-slip unit, the surfeit of grip over grunt means you don’ t always have the firepower to neutralise that understeer with your right foot.

That’s okay, circuit hot laps should only ever be an interesting aside in any non-KTM X-Bow car test, and there’s more to a great performance car than Great Scott! exclamations when you open the taps. Where the RCF scores is exactly where the BMW falls down: telepathic throttle response, a power curve that rewards hard work and a proper V8 roar.

And the whole package feels so much better on the road. The ISF’s fixed-rate dampers made it jiggle down even the smoothest stretch of Tarmac, but the RCF has adaptive dampers and mostly feels light years more restful. Driven quickly, but sanely, on real roads, the RCF is good company: rousing like a gospel sing-song when you want it to be, calming like a buddhist retreat when you don’ t. That’s not a USP though rivals pull off that trick too.

And they go harder, and last longer between fills. Predictably, the combination of a big motor and bigger waistline means you pay a price at the pumps. Engineers tell us that running the engine on the Atkinson cycle at low speeds before switching to the traditional Otto cycle further up the rev range enables the 5.0-litre V8 to return the sort of economy normally only possible with, wait for it, a 4. 2. Well that’s the planet saved, right there. An M4 consumes two litres less fuel every 100 km and emits almost 50 fewer g/km of CO2.

I love the cabin, but it’s a shame that Lexus’s desire to be different means it has ditched the LFA’s unloved computer mouse controller, not for the rotary dial BMW, Mercedes and Audi have proved so suitable for the job, but for a laptop-style trackpad. To prevent the cursor spending its life in the wilderness between virtual function buttons on the menu screen, it flicks directly to them magnetically. But the unpleasant jolt of haptic feedback as it lands on each reminds me of the time my dad tricked me into grabbing an electric fence at a farm when I was a kid.

Optional equipment includes the RCF Carbon pack, which adds a Mark Levinson hi-fi, heated alcantara seats, better-looking, but still 19in tall alloys, the trick differential as well as those eponymous carbon bits. Specifically, they’re the roof and bonnet, which together cut 10kg from the kerb weight, but look absolutely preposterous. Fortunately, Lexus tells us you can have the standard car and cherry pick some of the good stuff, saving you money and face.

At the end of the test drive, a couple of Japanese engineers scurried over with their clipboards, keen to hear what we had to say, but I think they already knew how it was going to go. The RCF isn’ t far off being a really good GT, and we applaud the commitment to the purity of an unblown V8, but it’s too heavy, and simply not punchy enough to cut it against cars like the BMW M4. The interesting thing is that the chief engineer hinted that there was still plenty to come from the RCF. A hybrid, maybe? Turbo power for the V8 seems more likely, appearing in a faster, more hardcore, more expensive sister model.

So where does that leave the RCF as launched? Looping back to our hotel, jet lag and fear of the slammer limiting our cruise to 120 kph, top-drawer hi-fi occasionally interrupted by the beep-beep and thumbs-up of a passing Scion or Lexus keen to show its appreciation, I thought of the old Lexus ISF. Like the RCF, it was heavier, slower and more cramped than its BMW rival. Under the glare of a traditional group-test microscope it was only ever going to come away bruised, yet the long-term ownership experience showed it in a very different light, and I’m sure the RCF will shine in exactly the same way. The Lexus experience is about morethan what you could ever discover on a brief test. But knowing that this is just a taste of what’s to come, we’d be tempted to wait.

ENGINE 4 969cc 32v V8, 351 kW @ 7 100 rpm, 530 Nm @ 4 800-5 600 rpm
TRANSMISSION Eight-speed auto, rear-wheel drive
SUSPENSION Double wishbone front, multi-link rear
LENGTH/WIDTH/HEIGHT 4 705/1 845/1 390mm
WEIGHT 1 765 kg
PERFORMANCE 4.5sec 0-100kph, 270kph, 10.8ℓ/100km, 252g/km CO 2
ON SALE  Mid-2015