Lexus GS F 2016 Long-Term Test - 2

Lexus wants in on the European cool crowd and its best performing sports sedan to date, the GS F, is its latest offering. Its numbers certainly stack up with Germany’s finest with the GS F’s 5.0-litre V8 generating a whopping 351kW and 530Nm. It also ticks a lot of the luxury boxes with quality finishes and materials but is it as desirable a proposition for badge sensitive buyers?

What’s not to love about a $150,000 luxury V8 sports sedan? After all, it’s what we Aussies have been brought up to aspire to over the past 40 years.

While even the top end of town is shifting its gaze toward SUVs, Lexus is hoping that (cashed-up) Australians still have a hankering for some refined muscle in the form of our current long-termer, it’s big and bold family muscle car, the GS F.

Powered by a naturally aspirated 5.0-litre V8 which is paired to an eight-speed automatic transmission, the Lexus GS F promises performance motoring which is refined yet still offers the promise of something much more raucous under the bonnet.

The Lexus largely delivers on its performance promise too, but on occasion it can seem far too demure, almost like it is constrained by a corset that’s several sizes too small.

Which is ironic as the car itself is definitely on the larger size. Inside there’s plenty of room for driver and passengers with my rear-seat passengers both commenting on the generous proportions of the back seat.

While the GS F sports a slightly swooping rear-end, there’s still plenty of headroom to be had and legroom a-plenty. The rear-seat passengers were also pretty chuffed to find controls for the infotainment system in the rear armrest so this is clearly a car designed to cater to the executive limo mob as well as those of us with demanding teens.

Up front the driver is welcomed with sport seats finished in alcantara and leather. While plush and comfortable, the seats are pretty wide and are not supportive for smaller-framed drivers. There’s no adjustable side bolsters either which would help alleviate the feeling that this is a car designed for much bigger people.

At 165cm, I’m not a particularly short driver yet had to have the seat pulled far forward to get a good driving position. It’s also a massive reach over to the door handle to close the huge front door and once the seat was in the correct position for me, the vision over the right shoulder was almost completely eliminated by what is quite possibly the world’s thickest B-pillar, creating the world’s biggest blind-spot.

The rest of the cabin is well finished and the choice of materials includes more alcantara on the armrests and door trim and carbon fibre detailing. Unfortunately for this luxury hopeful the Lexus developed a monstrous rattle from the centre dashboard which jarred within its incredibly quiet cabin ambience.

And quiet the Lexus is. In fact the noise isolation is so successful I actually felt quite disconnected from the engine once underway. Of course like every V8, there’s a grin-inducing burble from the exhaust once the go button is pressed but at low revolutions, the engine really seems quite quiet.

At speed limits up to 60km/h the Lexus GS F is a steady performer, there’s no point flicking it into sport mode at low speeds as it doesn’t even think about baring its teeth until you’re approaching 85-90km/h. In fact sports mode can feel really quite painful at lower speeds as it the automatic transmission will hold onto fifth gear as if its life depends on it.

Expect to do some manual shifting up the gears to relieve its pent up aggression – and your fuel bill.

The Lexus does deliver composed road handling and its sports-oriented suspension is taut but not overly stiff like similarly priced sports sedans such as the Mercedes-AMG C 63 S, which is pretty harsh on Australian roads, even in its comfort setting.

You can push the GS F hard into corners and the steering is nice and responsive, enough that you can engage well with the car without having to battle to keep its large frame under control.

Initiate slalom mode via the vehicle’s Torque Vectoring Differential (TVD) settings and the GS F seems to instinctively turn much more sharply, keeping that weight coming through corners in the right direction without generating much noticeable understeer.

It’s a sensation that has you thinking there’s no way you could own the GS F and not use it on the track. This is a car that needs to let off the leash on weekends.

Once you get over the realisation that the GS F doesn’t really show its true colours until its right upon our highest speed limits, thoughts turn to how it performs as a day-to-day car. On freeways I found the Lexus to be a very comfortable cruiser, the interior certainly goes someway to create a cosseting environment, and the aforementioned suspension tune is quite agreeable on freeways and around town.

Fuel use was running around the 14.0L/100km mark which is about to be expected from a mammoth 5.0-litre V8 engine, running in Sport or Sport+ mode for most of my test week.

Unfortunately for the Lexus the comfort was not extended to the driver information interface and entertainment navigability. As previously mentioned by colleague, Bruce Newton, I found the infotainment system incredibly hard to master – the Lexus mouse/joystick arrangement is not as intuitive as dial systems used by others and is super-sensitive, meaning you can never pick exactly what you want first time.

That makes the system very frustrating and quite distracting to operate. Tasks like entering a navigation address were almost impossible while driving.

The driver information display is also hard to navigate. It has a series of menus and sub-menus and is not easy to find what you want quickly.

If I were spending $150,000 on a sedan, I’d want a car that’s easy to live with every day. The Lexus feels a bit overdone for daily use and I reckon its large proportions and fiddly make it harder to live with than is ideal. Yes the power is a heap of fun, and it’s a comfortable and non-challenging ride but it all just feels a little too much.

2016 Lexus GS F