It’s straightforward to get misplaced within the curve enchantment of the Lexus LC coupe or convertible. All the pieces pales in comparison with the swoopy, concept-car traces. A lit highway flare wouldn’t get way more than side-eye subsequent to the LC.
Even the 2020 Lexus LS500 sedan would have a tricky time standing out.
The four-door sedan that’s loosely primarily based on the LC shares extra in widespread with Emilio Estevez, Cooper Manning, and Roger Clinton. Is being associated to greatness nonetheless greatness?
To seek out out, I spent every week with the LS sedan and all its four-door glory. Regardless of Lexus’ capability to make stand-out, bona fide world-beaters (see, LFA and LC), it’s the DNA from the LS that we’ll probably see swimming within the automaker’s gene pool for fashions that observe.
That’s good and dangerous. Right here’s why:
2020 Lexus LS500
Hit: Minus two, with no the rest
The LC500’s sonorous V-Eight makes neck hairs stand, corners of mouths curl upward, and grown males weep. The LS doesn’t get the identical therapy. Its twin-turbo 3.5-liter V-6 makes gobs of energy—416 horsepower, truly—and dishes out torque like haymakers from a heavyweight. It’s satisfyingly highly effective and eminently refined, particularly paired to the LS’s 10-speed computerized that blurs out and doesn’t impede any energy from discovering the suitable tires. As a V-Eight purist, I’m happy with the ability…
2020 Lexus LS500
Miss: …however not the sound
At full throat, the V-6 chirps an unwelcome melody that the LS cabin strains to stifle. The LS500 F Sport allegedly pipes in additional, and I’m on the lookout for the Mute button on my distant already. It’s hardly truthful to say {that a} stately luxurious automobile just like the LS ought to sound like a Can-Am racer at full throttle, however a deep bellow and large sedans go collectively like a snifter of brandy and a Cohiba.
2020 Lexus LS500
2020 Lexus LS500
2020 Lexus LS500
Hit: God is within the particulars
Toddlers and I contact all the things in entrance of our faces. The LS rewards that tactile spirit with supplies and surfaces that don’t solely reward touching, additionally they encourage it. The fabric on the doorways? Every swatch strikes independently. The leather-based? That’s softer than an Enya album. The metallic is colder than a Sixth-grade breakup and the wooden is hotter than whiskey on a winter evening. The LS’s cabin nails each element, besides…
2020 Lexus LS500
Miss: …botched big-screen infotainment
My choir instructor used to inform me that not solely was I the worst singer within the group, I used to be additionally the loudest. Hello, Lexus infotainment system. It’d be straightforward to dunk on the touchpad-based system, others have. It’s not solely complicated, however the Lexus infotainment system additionally controls all the things. Digging into the in-seat therapeutic massage display screen requires tapping by means of the local weather system, previous the temperature settings, into the person seats to pick the therapeutic massage program, depth, and route. Altering a radio station actually drove me to distraction.
2020 Lexus LS500
Miss: Skinny is in
The LS’s steering wheel is completed in wooden, which is good however feels thicker than the rope from 4th-grade gymnasium class. It’s a mismatch for a sublime automobile that misplaced sportiness about 1,000 kilos in the past. I’d favor a skinny wheel with a light-weight contact, and so far as these steering wheel controls and paddle shifters? Lose ‘em.
2020 Lexus LS500
Hit: Government degree, mid-management value
So far as full-boat sedans go, the LS is a steal. Our tester’s value of greater than $110,000 is hardly low-budget, however amongst govt sedans like absolutely optioned S-Class and 7-Sequence, it’s tens of hundreds much less. Higher crust varieties nonetheless depend pennies—no less than they need to.
The 2020 Lexus LS can increase eyebrows, however the LC raises pulses. From what’s come out after it, together with the LS, it’s clear that the LC gained’t go away a lot behind when it will definitely goes away. That’s a disgrace. The LS is stately and good-looking however lacks the polish that established rivals embrace all over the place—not simply in some locations.
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2020 Lexus LS500
Base value: $77,500, together with vacation spot
Value as examined: $113,120
Drivetrain: 416-hp 3.5-liter twin-turbo V-6, 10-speed computerized transmission, all-wheel drive
EPA gasoline economic system: 18/27/21 mpg
The hits: Stunning particulars, govt package deal, sturdy powertrain
The misses: Infotainment, lacking sonorous burble, small imperfections
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