2023 Lexus IS500 Review
2023 Lexus IS500 F-Sport Performance
Base Price: $56,850
5.0 Liter V8
472 HP / 395 TQ
0-60: 4.4 Seconds
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Guy who did stuff: Yousef Alvi
Glancing at the specs of this new 2023 Lexus IS500 you would be forgiven to think of this as the ‘new’ IS-F. The vehicle that help propel Lexus into the same realms as the M3 and the C63. Except you would be wrong. This isn’t a direct successor to the IS-F, this is more of a direct competitor to the M340i, S4 and the C43. What Lexus learned in the IS-F days is that while you can try to go spec-for-spec with the Germans, to be truly special is to bring something different to the table. That leads us to this 2023 Lexus IS500.
The Great
Gotta love a V8
Bat out of Hell
Seat/Sitting position
That V8
This 5.0 Liter V8 is an absolute gem of an engine. It reminds one of the versatile, smooth and relentless power that 8 perfectly balanced cylinders can provide.
Bat of out Hell
It’s relaxed and refined around town but pass someone on the highway…and it erupts with a viscious and seductive roar that propels you into the next county immediately.
Seriously…get on a highway and spin this sucker from 5k RPM to redline and it will change your life.
Seats/Sitting
The best sitting position in the entire segment. The IS500 requires 4 seconds of adjustment for the perfect driving position, offering a range of low and rally like to old lady ‘into the sunroof and elbows on the steering wheel’ position. The ergonomics are nothing short of first-rate.
The Good
Looks
Handling and Ride
Looks
The best looking IS since the original back in the 2000s, this latest generation is the best looking vehicle in it’s segment and one of the best looking vehicles for sale today.
It’s taken nearly two decades for Lexus designers to mesh their Predatory and err angular design language with the flowy and organic designs that they were renown for in the past and this new IS shows it off in dramatic and beautiful fashion.
Handling
You don’t drive the IS500 with your fingertips, you drive it with your shoulders and the heel of your foot. This is one of those rare vehicles in that instead of understeering itself into oblivion, the harder you drive it the better it responds.
Grab the wheel with authority and chuck into a bend and the IS responds with tenacity. Add that along with a telepathic mechanical (swoon) limited rear differential, the earlier you get on the throttle the louder your laughter will be at the end of the corner.
Now you would be forgiven in assuming the ride quality would suffer…but you would be wrong. The IS500 has the best ride in the compact sports segment. It’s downright comfortable in every scenario thrown at it! From stuck in traffic, to highway cruising to mountain road carving…it’s tuned to perfection.
The Bad
Wind/Tire Roar
Whoosh
Speaking of highway… the unsavory pair of wind and tire noise in the IS reveals the ‘old-bones’ lurking in this generation’s platform.
One can trace it’s origins back to 2003 with ToMoCo’s N Platform and with obvious tweaks along the way…it does reveal it’s age.
The Ugly
Transmission
Transmission
The 8 speed automatic in the IS500 would find a happier place living in a RX rather than this IS. It delivers shifts in lazily and buttery fashion around town and it’s quite lovely just cruising.
Ask anything more than that and the IS’s transmission is recalcitrant, uncooperative and completely disobedient. Put your foot down in full Auto mode and it will refuse to downshift until the very last second, try to manually override it and you can finish War and Peace by the time it decides to shift per your command.
Overall:
Even with the archaic transmission and the highway noise, the IS500 F-Sport Performance has that one thing that is missing from most of it’s segment:
A soul.
It feels like it has a heartbeat, it feels like it’s alive in a sea of competitors who feel dead. It’s unperfectly….perfect.
