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The 2012 Lexus GS350.


The styling of the all-new Lexus GS350 promises so much. It's a study in aggressive angles, a clear and direct contrast to the soft shapes of the GS that Lexus produced up until this year.



The 2012 Lexus GS350 interior.


The promise continues when you slide behind the wheel. The GS, so old-fashioned as recently as 2010 to have sported a cassette tape player in the dash, now has an utterly contemporary interior in which to do business, including a gargantuan video display in the center of the dash (clearly inspired by BMW).

The specs are promising...3.5 liter V6, 306 horsepower, 277 pounds per foot of torque...six-speed automatic with paddle shifters, 17 inch 9-spoke alloy wheels and the usual assortment of Lexus luxury and safety items for a base price of $46,900. Thanks to the six-speed automatic, that brings with it EPA estimated mileage of 19 city/28 highway.


But in the GS, it's all about how you equip it. We drove two on two consecutive weeks. The first was fitted with the Luxury Package. That's $5,750 worth of ventilated front seats, rear sunshade, an upgrade to 18-inch wheels, Sport S+ Drive Mode, adaptive front lighting, wood and leather trimmed steering wheel, linear espresso wood interior trim, semi-aniline leather interior trim, 18-way power front seats, Lexus memory system for the front passenger and a three (!) zone climate control.

This car also added a blind spot monitoring system ($500), a Mark Levinson 835-watt 7.1 surround sound audio system ($1,380), the navigation package ($1,735), intuitive park assist ($500), a cargo net ($64) and a trunk mat ($105). With $875 for destination and handling, the bottom line read $57,809.

And it drove....like a Lexus. Which isn't a bad thing if you're a Lexus fan and define your luxury by degrees of isolation rather than involvement. And that's not a bad thing if that's what you're expecting. It's quantum leaps better than the previous GS...but a bit of a letdown from what the styling and specs were promising.

And then, we drove this:



The 2012 Lexus GS350 with F SPORT.


This is the same car...same engine, same base price, same fuel economy estimates, same standard equipment.

There are just two differences. Instead of being equipped with the Luxury Package, this was outfitted with the F SPORT Package, and the Mark Levinson audio system was replaced with the $320 more expensive Lexus Dynamic Handling System.

And that....makes all the difference in the world. Because F SPORT turns the GS 350 into a driver's car. For $5,690 ($160 less than the Luxury Package), you get the rain-sensing wipers, heated and ventilated front seats and rear power sunshade in the luxury package, but you also get 19-inch alloy wheels with summer tires instead of all-seasons, F SPORT-tuned adaptive variable suspension, variable gear-ratio steering, 14-inch two-piece front brake rotors with four-piston calipers, a 16-way F SPORT driver's seat with power side bolsters, and more. And what it does with the same 306 horsepower is a thing of beauty. It carves instead of wallows, direct inputs are followed by direct responses, it just plain works.



The 2012 Lexus GS350 with F SPORT rear view.

 Short version, you'll look for every winding road you can find...because it's truly a blast to drive. And F-SPORT gets you a tasty interior re-do as well:



The 2012 Lexus GS350 with F SPORT interior.


Oh, yeah. Much, much better. And remember, the EPA mileage estimates stay the same and so does the base price. In fact, the as-equipped price of the F SPORT-equipped GS350 was only $260 more than the Luxury Package-equipped model.

You know which one we'd pick.

Sweet couple, yellow is hot this year! Rianne Ten Haken meets LFA.

Second picture is in high resolution, it's wallpaper time!

The GS is Lexus' mid-size sedan...larger than the ES, smaller than the LS...and it's rear-wheel drive.

The one we sampled for a week courtesy of Bell Lexus in Phoenix was the V6-powered GS 350 as opposed to the V8 GS 460. Having driven the 460 (a fine car), I'd pick the 350. Plenty of power, better handling with less engine weight on the nose, and only a 4/10ths of a second difference in zero to 60 time (5.8 seconds versus 5.4 for the V8). And there's about a $9,000 price break when you choose the RWD 350 over the RWD 460. That price spread jumps to more than $10,000 between the all-wheel drive 350 and 460.

Yellow menace posing on street. If that leaves you cold, get outta here :)

Amazing desktop picture, Lexus LFA waiting to hit the track. [1680x1050px]

V10 masterpiece, hide Mona Lisa.

We pretty much did our post-mortem of Mercury five days early...running down the cause(s) of the impending death.

So what happens now? Well, Ford says they're going to devote their energies into revitalizing their Lincoln brand.

On paper, this makes a bunch of sense. The successful model for car sales is one mainstream brand, one luxury (think Toyota/Lexus)...with no definable space for a "middle" brand (GM is bucking that wisdom by keeping Buick).

But where exactly is Ford taking Lincoln? Part of the problem is that for all the talk of how Mercury was done in by being nothing more than some re-badged Fords, it's hard to say Lincoln's in much better shape (the MKZ is a Fusion, the MKX an Edge, the MKS a last-gen Taurus and the MKT a Flex...though those last two are pretty well disguised).

Unique products? Well, there's the Town Car...but that's a dinosaur headed to extinction with no plans for a replacement. Oh, yeah...and they still sell the Navigator. Just not many of them.

Ford says a small car (based on the next Focus) that was supposed to be a Mercury will now be a Lincoln.

Depends on how they do that...but it sounds a little down-market for where Lincoln needs to be.

The TireKicker take? Lincoln needs to take serious aim at Cadillac. They need one car at least as good as the CTS. A CTS-V competitor would have to follow. And, you may have noticed, the CTS is not a re-badged Chevrolet. They need a larger sedan to do battle with the DTS/STS replacement that's coming. They need a crossover to compete with the SRX.  And, if there's a market for a premium sedan below the CTS in the U.S., Lincoln needs to play there, too.

Until and unless the Ford Expedition becomes as good as or better than the Chevy Suburban, Lincoln doesn't need to go chasing the Escalade (especially not the pickup version).

All this means engines, materials, and enthusiasm well beyond what we've seen from Lincoln before...plus a promotion budget to get the message across to buyers (it's been 10 years since Cadillac claimed "Breakthrough" with Led Zeppelin and they're just starting to see the results). And that's going to be way more than combining the money devoted to Lincoln now with what they would have spent on Mercury.

The situation calls for a world-class luxury brand. And until and unless Ford gets that, Lincoln's in danger of being a more expensive Mercury.

Alright, "blessing" is too strong a term. "Lifting the curse" is probably a better way to put it. After all, a month of being labelled a "Don't Buy" by Consumer Reports is the nearest thing to a kiss of death the automobile industry knows.  But it's all better now, right?

If video isn't visible, click the headline above.



Yep...Toyota was able to replicate the sideways slide that prompted Consumer Reports to label the GX 460 a safety risk last week. And their engineers formulated a software update to prompt the stability control to step in sooner.

Toyota Japan issued a news release with a lot more in the way of hard facts:


TMC Announces Remedy for Vehicle Stability Control in Lexus GX 460 and Toyota Land Cruiser Prado


Toyota City, Japan—Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) announces its remedy for the problem concerning the Vehicle Stability Control (VSC) program in its Lexus GX 460 and certain Land Cruiser Prado vehicles.

In circumstances in which advanced driving skills are required, such as when a driver of the involved vehicle sharply turns the steering wheel in high-speed conditions, or when the driver negotiates a curve at excessive speeds, the vehicle could slide sideways, due to the insufficient activation of the VSC.

The following conditions combine to cause the problem:

- In the GX 460 and Land Cruiser Prado, heavy components, such as the fuel tank, are located on the left side, and in left-hand drive versions, the left side is made even heavier because of the presence of the driver.

- For vehicles with certain tires (on 18-inch wheels) and equipped with the Kinetic Dynamic Suspension System (KDSS*) and VSC, the activation of the VSC may not be sufficient in certain circumstances due to the setting of the VSC program.

- Circumstances may require advanced driving skills, such as sharp turns of the steering wheel in high-speed conditions or negotiating a curve to the right at excessive speeds.

As a remedy, Toyota will update the VSC program to enhance the effectiveness of the VSC so that the risk of the vehicle sliding, even to the point that it is almost sideways, will be reduced.

Vehicles involved are as follows:

- GX 460: Approx. 13,000 units in total Approx. 9,400 units in the United States, approx. 1,000 units in Russia, approx 1,000 units in Oman

- Land Cruiser Prado: Approx. 21,000 units in total (only left-hand drive vehicles with KDSS and VSC) Approx. 4,400 units in Oman, approx. 4,000 units in Russia, approx. 1,500 units in the United Arab Emirates. No right-hand drive units have this problem.

In total, approximately 34,000 units worldwide are involved. In North America, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. (TMS) and Toyota Canada Inc. (TCI) each announced a voluntary recall on April 19 (local time). As for other regions and countries involved, such as in Europe and the Middle East, TMC will work to implement similar measures as soon as possible.

Full story from Automotive News.

UPDATE: Toyota, having no choice, has made it official. Details here.

Lexus’ extensive vehicle testing provides a good indication of how our vehicles perform and we are confident that the GX meets our high safety standards. Our engineering teams are vigorously testing the GX using Consumer Reports’ specific parameters to identify how we can make the GX’s performance even better.

For any customer who has purchased a 2010 GX 460 and is concerned about driving their vehicle, we will provide a loaner car until a remedy is available.

As always, Lexus is committed to providing our customers with outstanding products and service.


Customers who have any questions or concerns should contact Lexus Customer Satisfaction at 1-800-25 LEXUS or 1-800-255-3987."

Consumer Reports says the recently redesigned SUV gets sideways in emergency handling maneuvers, with the electronic stability control kicking in too late, creating a rollover risk. Here's video of their test: