It's A Head Turner
Newcastle Herald
Saturday August 3, 2002
OPEN the big, heavy door. Sink into the plush leather seat. Fire the engine.
Eight cylinders jump to attention and settle into a steady, even idle. You sense it rather than hear it because the insulated, isolated interior of the car refuses to admit extraneous sounds and only the instrument needles show that the engine is actually running.
Never mind. It can make a bit of noise later.
You touch a button on the console and a burled walnut panel swings on the dash and retracts silently to reveal the Mark Levinson-designed audio unit. Push the right button and the strains of the day are melted away courtesy of a 240-watt amplifier and nine speakers.
The evening is mild. Cool rather than cold and the sun is just starting to drop in the western sky.
Push another button and less than 30 seconds later the refined two-door coupe is an equally refined two-door roadster with the metal top stowed noiselessly and mechanically in the boot.
People stop to watch the sight of the bootlid (hinged at its trailing edge for stowing the roof and at its leading edge for stowing luggage) lifting and the roof folding to disappear.
They point and you smile, happy that you have given the less fortunate folk something to talk about. Aahhh, yes, life's tough at the top.
Then you pull the shift lever out of `park' into `drive', flick the release for the foot-operated park brake, flick the indicator stalk and pull out into traffic, resting easy in the superbly padded and electrically adjustable leather seat.
The headlights have turned themselves on because you always leave the switch in the `automatic on' position and that leaves you with time on your hands to attend to the 210kW of power and 419Nm of torque which the nice fellows from Lexus have conveniently placed at your disposal.
And on the way home you might just give the engine a bit of stick, might just flick the shifter out of the `drive' position so you can make that all-alloy, 4.3 litre, quad-camshaft engine growl tunefully as you play it through the gearbox, personally selecting the ratios rather than letting the various mechanical systems do it for you.
Just for fun you will activate the satellite navigation unit (hiding under another electrically activated, burled walnut panel in the centre of the dash) and let it tell you ? in a polite, mildly accented, female voice, of course ? how to get home. It will even get you home if you take a dozen wrong turns, constantly recalibrating itself courtesy of global positioning and never scolding you for turning left instead of right.
Yes, Lexus' latest automotive offering, the SC430, is a car designed and built to pamper its owners, a car to announce an arrival without the need to scream at the top of its generous lungs.
Just don't think of it as a sports car. Rather, think of it as a grand tourer with a modicum of sporting ability and the power to impress.
The SC430 is the genesis of the original sporting Lexus, the SC400 (a coupe derivative of the LS400 sedan) which never made it to Australia with the company's blessing but sold in modest quantity as a grey import.
For this latest car Lexus designers at the company's EPOC design centre in the south of France used the pleasure boats of the rich and famous as their influence while the engineers simply built-in as much high-tech hardware as they possibly could.
The result is technologically excellent, a car which in some ways looks not unlike a pumped-out, beefed-up Audi TT, a car with electronic comfort and safety systems and, perhaps most importantly, excellent build quality in every area.
Continued Page 52
From Page 49
Head turner
BUT in creating the overall package of subliminal pampering the team came up short on practicality in some fairly fundamental areas.
The overall design concept, for example, is for a 2+2 hardtop/roadster yet the legroom available to anyone electing to sit in the narrow back seat is approximately zero behind the average height driver and a little better behind the passenger if he or she deigns to move the (10-way electrically adjustable) seat forward.
Then there is the small problem of boot space. Or the lack of it.
With the roof up the boot space is at best minimal courtesy of a load floor which is stepped at approximately the rear axle line. The spare wheel, mounted vertically at the rear of the boot, blocks the load lip and the width of the wheel and its cover encroaches on the available space.
With the roof down that minimal space becomes almost non-existent with enough room for a couple of briefcases positioned side-by-side under the folded hardtop.
Even with the roof erect the possibility of fitting something like a golf bag in the boot is pretty much a foregone conclusion and with the roof down the best place for the golf bag (or suitcase or whatever) is the back seat.
Which begs the question: why fit a back seat to the car? Why not simply convert the area into a plush cargo space with appropriate tie-downs to secure the luggage?
We can only think ? with some trepidation ? of the vacationing SC430 owner hitting the road with the Louis Vuitton suitcases perched precariously on an after-market luggage rack attached to the boot lid.
The car is sublime to drive. The 4.3-litre V8 is an effortless cruiser, the five-speed automatic smooth and free of vice.
At highway speeds with the top up the car is spookily silent with wind, road and engine noise almost totally absent. Even the huge 245/40ZR18 tyres are quiet.
Apply the throttle for instant squirt though and the Lexus comes up lacking, the engine needing time to gather itself together to haul the 1700kg-plus up into the stratosphere.
The handling is equally sublime with a power-assisted rack and pinion steering system which is almost lifeless, offering little feel and less feedback and an independent suspension layout (double front wishbones and rear multilinks) which needs more feel.
In other words, the SC430 looks like a sports car but feels like a scaled-down luxury sedan.
At least the ride is good with a slightly firm suppleness which feeds information about the road surface to driver and passenger but does not rattle their fillings in the process.
But as a head turner and feature-laden luxury car for two the SC430 is almost without peer.
Just don't call it a sports car.
At a glance
MAKE AND MODEL: LEXUS SC430
PRICE: $162,000 (Does not include options, dealer or government charges)
DIMENSIONS:
Length: 4515mm
Width: 1825mm
Height: 1370mm
Wheelbase: 2620mm
Track front/rear: 1550mm/1535mm
Kerb weight: 1740kg
ENGINE/TRANSMISSION: Fuel-injected, all-alloy, quad-camshaft, 32-valve, 4.3 litre, V8 with variable valve timing. 210kW @ 5600rpm, 419Nm @ 3500rpm. Electronically controlled, five-speed adaptive automatic.
CHASSIS: Front, longitudinal engine, rear-wheel-drive, electrically assisted rack and pinion steering, power-assisted disc brakes front and rear with ABS, 18x8-inch alloy wheels, 245/40ZR18 tyres.
SUSPENSION: Independent double wishbones, coil springs, gas-filled dampers, anti-roll bar front, independent double wishbones, coil springs, gas-filled dampers and stabiliser bar rear.
FUEL TYPE AND CAPACITY: ULP/PULP (premium fuel recommended), 75 litres.
AVERAGE FUEL ECONOMY: 13.8 litres/100km.
© 2002 Newcastle Herald
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