Will the real Lexus LS 460 please stand up? It will be next month before we really know -- if then. Yes, the dealers will get the fourth generation LS in October, but will the customers of the car really drive it before they buy it. The problem now is trying to figure out what the car is like from reading the reports in car magazines and the LA Times.
One can really wonder when you read the car magazine reports if the writers are so taken by Toyota hospitality that they gush with superlatives without really thinking about it. Or... dare I say it... are they afraid of losing the considerable money spends on advertising? Can they be objective? Are they being objective?
I distinctly remember getting to drive one of the first series of LS 400s introduced into the United States. Well, all of the original LS 400s were introduced into the United States because this market is what the car was specifically designed for. While I had a "monitor person" with me in the car, I was able to drive it somewhat vigorously. My immediate impression was that the car magazine reports I read were wrong. They compared it to a Mercedes. It definitely was not that. It was simply the world's best Cadillac. It was silent, something the then current Mercedes was not. It was soft riding, the Mercedes wasn't that either. It really isolated the driver from the road, with little steering feel. That wasn't a Mercedes either, but it certainly was the Cadillac of that era. It was really a refrigerator since it was very blandly styled too, handsome, but bland. It also was a pillar of Toyota reliability, something that neither the Cadillac nor the Mercedes was.
I have also driven the succeeding generations of the LS and have found that the design philosophy has not changed over the years. All of them define refrigerator. These generations of the LS have been state-of-the-automotive-art when it comes to gadgets. And they still are more reliable than any of their competitors. But all the competitors I can think of: Audi, BMW, Mercedes, and, yes, Cadillac (today) and Infiniti have much more soul.
The new LS looks (and reads) exactly like a proper successor of the previous generation LS. It still is not a BMW, or a Mercedes for that matter, to the driver. I say this despite what I read in the car magazines about this car being the best thing since sliced bread. But then that seems to be what they say about most new cars.
Autoweek's Pete Lyons gushes about how the new LS isn't "'staid-looking' like the previous generation, but now uses the 'L-finesse' corporate styling theme in an edgy way that adds visual energy." Yeah, right. It still looks pretty boring to me at least in the pictures. It does have a hint of a Bangle Butt, though. I am sure that Toyota won't like this comment: To m
e it looks a lot like the new Avalon! I submit the pictures with this article as evidence. Yes, the taillights are a bit different, but the profile, grille shape, headlight shape, and most everything else, including the Bangle Butt are very similar.
Mr. Lyons goes on breathlessly to describe the new engine in the LS as being "all new". Well, it is a derivative of the current 4.3 engine expanded to 4.6-liters. That does mean that lots of the parts are new, and Toyota took the opportunity to modernize manufacturing technology. But to claim that this is Formula 1 technology in their new LS? Actually the words are that the new V-8 was "spun off together" with the Formula 1 program. They don't share a single component, but are "expressions of the same knowledge base". Yeah, right... BMW and Mercedes both have their own Formula 1 engines that have won races unlike the Toyota engine, and they don't claim to have that technology in their car engines.
And isn't it interesting that without questioning the Toyota press kit, Mr. Lyons tells us that the new V-8 has "precisely the optimal bore diameter (94.0 mm) to yield the least possible friction as the aluminum block distorts during temperature and stress cycles." By the way, the "bore diameter" is the diameter of the hole in the engine block that the pistons go up and down in. With a little engineering knowledge, I would say that there is a lot more to know about the engine design before a "precisely optimal" diameter is selected.
Also Mr. Lyons tells us that Toyota infers that their camshaft design is unique and pioneering in the facts that the cam lobes are forged and ground individually, then locked "precisely" into place on the shaft, which are hollow to save weight. At least he quotes a Toyota guy to say that this isn't a secret from the Formula 1 team. I would point out that it isn't secret at all and has been used by other manufacturers for years! Actually I am kind of surprised that Toyota doesn't use that "technology" on all their engines. Then I would add that those cam lobs darn well better be locked precisely in place. If they aren't the valve timing is off, which would cause lots of other problems.
Toyota also has introduced the world's first eight-speed automatic for the LS. All the PR in the world can't disguise the reason for that: Mercedes now has a seven-speed automatic and the other competition must do with just six-speeds (like the previous LS). Toyota must go one better and have eight speeds. The claim is that having eight speeds allows the engineers to make the ratios span a range larger than that of six or seven speeders. True. And that allows more economy and better performance. But why eight? Why not ten? Or twenty? Clearly it was to make theirs one better than Mercedes who had to make theirs one better than the rest.
But let's look at this revolutionary development a bit deeper. It seems obvious that to put one or two more gear sets into the transmission will make it bigger and heavier -- and that means less performance and economy. But Toyota claims to have done this with fewer parts in a case smaller than the six-speed transmission. Whoa! What about the physics of this? It means that the gears and clutches are smaller -- and that means lower maximum torque capability. The good news for all manufacturers making this kind of tradeoff is that these days the engines and transmissions are controlled electronically, so that transmission, in fact, doesn't have to have the capacity to take the engine's maximum torque. The electronics can limit the torque going to the transmission if it will destroy the insides. Another "benefit" of this limitation is that the shifts seem smoother because the engine is "backed off" during shifts. What is doesn't mean is maximum performance and "crisp" shifts during maximum acceleration. If you have a modern car, what does the first-to-second gear shift seem like under maximum acceleration? If it is kind of smoothed out, this is an example of the electronics limiting the torque delivery to the transmission.
All of the reports I've read talk about the pinnacle of new technology that Toyota has put into the new LS (as an option) is automatic parking. According to Autoweek, you pull up to the parking place and it will park itself. It really sounds easy and great. It will even park the LS into both parallel and parking lot places. May I remind you that there is a video of the prototype BMW system for parallel parking a 7-series car that has been on the internet for two years.
But now for someone with our opinion -- an enthusiast who doesn't have to worry about keeping Toyota advertising. Mr. Dan Neil has already established his reputation with a negative review of a GM car with the result that GM pulled advertisement from the LA Times. Here are a few things he had to say about the vaunted LS 460:
Last things first, Dan's response to the automatic parking was a "hearty, unstifled yawn". He adds to the unbridled enthusiastic reports elsewhere that the system requires a parking place a full 6.5 feet longer than the car. Yes, I suppose some LA drivers couldn't park in a place that big, but not many. Also he says that it takes a very long time to do it. Of course that wouldn't matter to the woman on a cell phone who blocks traffic for an eternity in Beverly Hills parking her LS, but I will wager that the drivers waiting for her won't be so happy.
Dan's analysis of the styling agrees with me. "Compared to the lyrical singspiel of Mercedes' CLS or the Audi A8, the LS is a dirge. Actually it kind of looks like a Toyota Avalon with a post-graduate degree." He says it better than me.
The extended wheelbase LS comes with a world's record eleven air bags. And four-zone climate control. What's amazing too is that it uses an infrared camera to measure the passengers' body temperature and adjust the temperature accordingly. Big brother or what?
The title of Dan's article says it all, "Passion takes a back seat". And he finishes with, "Yes, yes, a very nice robot... Of course the cars are splendid appliances. But will they ever be cherished automobiles like those old-world marques BMW or Bentley?"
My summary after reading several car magazines and Dan's review is that the LS is the world's best Sub-Zero.
