Gadgetory

oh the 2014 lexus is-f this is the last of the lexus second generation is chassis the rest of the lines moved on to the third generation platform now what makes the ISF special it's part sport sedan parked japanese muscle and all grins I'm behind the wheel let's go over and see what's under the hood and check the tech now the ISF is no mere body kit and styling upgrade like the F Sport package that you'll get on a standard is this is F model is practically a completely different vehicle its body is wider it sits lower on a suspension it sits on 19-inch wheels that are of a staggered fit so the Front's are a little bit narrower the backs are a little bit wider so you get better grip at the rear end where all the power is going and if you ever need to spot one of these things going down the road one of the first things you look for are these fake brake ducts right here they're a cosmetic choice not a performance upgrade but they do kind of help push the body out a little bit more and complete the look of the appearance and of course you've got F Sport badges all over the damn thing now in case you hadn't forgotten that this is a special car even the engine cover has a carbon-fiber look and underneath that it's going to be Lexus's 5 litre v8 engine now that's going to use a combination of direct and port injection to get you 416 horsepower and 371 pound-feet of torque now with an engine this big you're gonna use a lot of fuel even when you're idling so it's got about 16 miles per gallon in the city 23 miles per gallon on the highway I've been averaging about 10 fuel economy is not the number you're really interested in when you're looking at a vehicle like this though you want to know those performance numbers this thing does 0 to 60 and 4.6 seconds and goes on to a top speed of 170 miles per hour you're not going to do that anywhere away from a track here's about the point where you'd expect me to complain about Lexus only having an automatic transmission on their sports sedan but this is a really good automatic transmission if that eight forward speak and that's from a five or six year old gearbox most automakers are only getting around putting out fibbin in their most efficient vehicles we've got eight in the sports car and that transmission also uses Lexuses direct shift technology which locks up the gearbox it locks up the torque converter and gears two through eight so you lose a little bit of the slot that you would normally have in a torque converted automatic transmission but then you still get the smooth shifts when you need them now day to day it's a little rough to deal with the suspension is firm and it's gonna bump you around a lot over bums those brakes are gonna squeal when they're cold but you do that getting into this you drop down your money on a Lexus IS F you knew that you're getting something that's just a little bit more hard edged than your typical is so I'm willing to deal with that for the grin that this car supplies it man are there plenty of grin to be had now the interior and cabin tech of this 2014 is f is top-notch for 2008 when this car was debuted it haven't changed a lot so we do have some cool things here push-button starter as standard we've got these really nice sport seats that are leather and alcantara and they really hold you knife in the corners there's not a lot of hard plastic but the dashboards covered with this weird soft rubbery stuff I like to call this Godzilla skin because it looks like the big monster from the Japanese movies the dashboard tech is mostly optional this is going to be our hard drive based Lexus navigation system it's uh uses a touchscreen as opposed to the remote touch controller that a lot of newer lexus is use and it does feel dated but it definitely gets the job done it has been updated with Lexus's in four maps so if you want to use Pandora Bing for searching looking up Yelp reviews and whatnot you can do all of that here once you've connected to a smartphone that's running the in-form app we've also got Bluetooth hands-free as standard as well as audio streaming and USB connectivity for your iPod and mass storage devices the interesting thing about the system is that although it is dated and it uses the touchscreen and the graphics look a little bit old in its own way it is better than what Lexus is doing right now with that remote touch controller there's not a lot of fiddling 'us it's really simple and it's really easy to use and I'd like to see Lexus getting back to doing more with less instead of complicating the control scheme now the audio from this non-branded 13 speaker Lexus audio system is really good this really strong bass and fills the cabin up and 13 speakers in a small sedan is a lot and it actually sounds really good depending on which audio source you give it we've got the affer mentioned USB and Bluetooth connectivity we've also got HD radio for those of you who like terrestrial we've got satellite radio also and then you've got a couple of digital audio streaming sources when you use the inform apps upgrading to the navigation camera also takes the advantage of the large screen with a reverse camera and it doesn't have trajectory lines or denseness markers but it is remarkably clear big and bright I really like that for 500 or 600 more dollars you get front and rear different sensors so they'll let you know with an audible beep when you're getting close to something at the front and rear of the vehicle and of course it's going to take a lot of practice to get this wide-body close to the curb without scuffing up those 19-inch BBS wheels okay so let's price this 2014 lexus is-f the last of the second generation IH bodies it's going to start at sixty three thousand three hundred and fifty dollars fully optioned up with navigation and parking sensors and floor mats you're going to come to sixty seven thousand four hundred and nineteen bucks all in now compared to a mercedes-benz c63 AMG or BMW m3 maybe that's not the best deal but a car like this isn't a logical decision it's an emotional decision nobody buys a big v8 because it makes sense that if your emotions are pointing you to this one of the last of the great Lexus sports sedan well perhaps that's worth the second look