Test Drove
reviewed by Courtney Messenbaugh

2/5/08

Christmas in January

By: Courtney Messenbaugh

You may recall that I asked Santa to leave the beautiful Lexus IS F from the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book under my tree. Shockingly, he did not come through on that wish. What was equally disappointing was that he didn’t come through on my backup wish of a 110-carat diamond, either.

Once I got over my disappointment, Christmas turned out fine. Heck, it was even jolly. Really, this first month of the New Year has been downright awesome. Case in point: The kind folks at Lexus invited me to Las Vegas last week to test-drive the IS F for a day! OK, it was only like an hour, but in that hour I was queen of the F. Hot damn, ladies (and gents), this car is fun. It definitely lived up to the dreamy sentiments I felt upon first seeing it in The Book.

The IS F is beautiful and fast, with a capital F, which is what you might think the F in its name stands for. When I asked Lexus College professor Charles Hubbard what the F really did stand for, he said, “Whatever you want it to.” Love that. In my mind, F is for fun, flexible, fancy, fabulous, freakalicious and friggin’ sweet. Pardon my language, but if you got to drive this car, I know that same phrase would pop into your head.

In case you weren’t around for my Dear Santa letter, let’s revisit the vitals of this car: It has a 416-horsepower, 5.0-liter V-8 engine and can go from zero to sixty in 4.6 seconds. Not too shabby for a four-seater that comes fully equipped with two Latch connectors in the backseat. I have to admit, it would probably be a tight squeeze for my son’s rear-facing seat. Oh well, it still goes from the playground to the proving ground without a problem; just hold on tight, kiddos!

The exterior is lovely and the interior is pretty cushy for such a high-performance car. The seats in particular deserve a shout-out, as they are designed to “hold the driver comfortably and securely in place.” You can say that again, because even at more than 100 mph (I couldn’t help it — I had the open road in front of me) I felt perfectly safe and steady.

Of course, in addition to the performance and those nice seats, everything else is of Lexus’ typical top-notch quality — great stereo, lovely detailing, automatic everything. And all of this comes at a starting price of only $56K! For a car that competes in the marketplace with the likes of BMW’s M and Mercedes’ AMG cars, that’s a bargain.

The market for this car (and others like it, as mentioned above) is dominated by men. In fact, upward of 80 percent of the expected buyers are men. So are we ladies supposed to sit home and twiddle our thumbs while the boys play Speed Racer? Oh no, my fellow Trixies, it’s time we get what we deserve — a little fun on the road. Go ahead, ask your own private Santa for one of these babies, because gosh darn it, it can be a workable family car (if you have a small family), it’s FUN and we’re worth it! It’s certainly more functional than a 110-carat diamond.

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