2018 Lexus LC500 - One Take REVIEW
Channel: Premium Cars
Date: 04/01/2018

Well it certainly looks distinct. The LC500 is a strong example of Lexus’ new design language -- it looks kind of bolted to the floor, poured onto the road. I like the look. It’s striking. That grille that everybody’s whining about doesn’t bother me. I think the proportions and the shape are cool. A crowd of neighbors who were in the demographic for one of these loved it. I was a little surprised it didn’t get more reactions from the general public during the week I had it, but everyone who commented liked it. This is exciting design!

Lexus says the LC500 is a “world-class prestige luxury coupe and a new era of uncompromising design and performance.” I agree, at least about those first two items. It’s also $92,000 worth of world-class prestige just to start. So get ready to pay for it.

It sits on an all-new platform, too, which adds to the excitement: the front-engine, rear-drive GA-L Global Architecture – Luxury, which will also underpin the next Lexus LS. This version of GA-L uses a mix of steel, aluminum, some carbon-fiber composite and a whole lot of suede, yet tips the scales at 4,280 pounds, according to the spec sheet. I would have thought it would weigh less, considering all those lightweight materials. Overcoming that mass is a powerful 471-hp 5.0-liter V8 mated to a 10-speed automatic driving those rear wheels to take the whole rig from 0-60 in just 4.4 seconds. Its sister ship, which I did not drive, is the LC500h, a hybrid version making 354 total system horsepower, 0-60 in 4.7 seconds and stickering at $96,510. 

Fine, fine, enough context -- what's it like to drive the thing? Well, it is not the next LFA. It’s not a supercar, it’s not a sports car, it might not even be a grand touring car. It’s more of what marketeers used to call way back a "personal luxury coupe," a modern-day, high-tech, high-power descendant of the SC400, or, if you wanted to be cruel, of the Lincoln Mark VII and VIII. I took it up Angeles Crest Highway just to see if it was sporty, and while I tried to force it into sportiness, it steadfastly remained tuna-boat luxurious. It plowed a little into corners here and there, and the steering required more tiny corrections than sportier cars I’d recently driven up here. It felt just a little too heavy. Then I took it along Mulholland because I refused to believe the Angeles Crest Highway results. Even playing around with the Sport and Sport+ functions, it remained heavy and luxurious.

“But it has 471 hp,” you bleat.

“Yes, but it weighs over 2 tons,” I retort. “With more of that weight on the front axle than on the rear.”

No matter how much “feel” you try to force into the steering, the most it will give you is “just barely overboosted,” never “light” or “nimble.” The brakes felt twitchy and nervous unless you hit them at full pressure; then everything worked well and stopped the car just fine. But as I approached 0 mph and just wanted to stop smoothly, I kept getting a kind of grabby feel from the discs, which were never very smooth when the pedal was up near the top of its travel. 

All this despite my test car having the Performance Package with forged aluminum wheels, TORSEN limited slip differential and rear-wheel steering. 

I like the look

I am not whining. I enjoyed driving the LC500 during my week; as a personal luxury coupe, it's something of a dream, floating and winging its way through the city as easily as it gently understeers up Highway 2.

The best functional thing about this whole car from a driver’s point of view is the 10-speed transmission, which shifts so quickly and so slickly that it's like one continuous pouring of power. It's also smooth on downshifts, imperceptible to feel but sonorous to hear as it automatically matches revs. The downshift blips might have scared the bicyclists for whom I always slowed way down, waiting for a safe place to pass them. Sorry, man, it’s the transmission, not me. But it has to be the smoothest-shifting, quietest, coolest transmission on the market.

There are a few goofy and ridiculous things they should have done better on this car: After you pull the washer lever, the driver’s side wiper blade leaves about a half a foot (8 inches, I just measured) of dried and murky washer-fluid slop blocking your vision on the driver’s left (why?); that gawdawful mouse pad that Lexus insists on using instead of buttons and knobs for the infotainment system? Good luck with that. And the useless back seats: What’s the point of having back seats if you wouldn’t put your worst enemy back there? Seriously, you couldn’t fit kids back there, and pets might complain, too. Shorten up the wheelbase, eliminate the rear seats, save weight and suddenly you have a sports car, or at least a sportier car. But no, you have a personal luxury coupe. Deal with it.