2022 Lexus IS 500 Review // Old School Cool

The 2022 Lexus IS 500 F SPORT Performance Launch Edition ($72,900 CAD starting, $56,500 USD starting) is a sports sedan built from a tried and true philosophy. A philosophy that includes a naturally aspirated V8 engine up front, a throaty exhaust in the back, rear wheel drive, and a limited-slip differential. But philosophy and nostalgia aside, how does the IS 500 F Sport Performance handle both spirited and daily driving? And is it worth getting over its competitors? Thomas and James are eager to find out! SUBSCRIBE!

James what’s happening why are we shaking i think we might be a sports car commercial you’re watching throttle nets i’m thomas and i’m james and this is the lexus is sport performance f sport performance that means that this is 500 graciously provided by the heroes at auto one group here in toronto is no normal f sport it’s not a full f but with a 5

Liter v8 quad exhaust tips and lsd and adaptive suspension it might as well be and at 472 horsepower it even has 56 more horsepower than the old isf but if you think about the fact that this car is basically a modded version of an is that came out almost a decade ago it can’t possibly be worth the 72 900 canadian starting price that lexus is asking surely can

It let’s find out if you’re new to us we do car reviews track tests and quite a lot of messing around so subscribe and hit the bell so a luxurious rear-wheel drive sport sedan with a naturally aspirated v8 that’s got to be a home run right i found a baseball diamond what do you want from me it’s actually not that simple because there was a time where v8 big

Displacement big horsepower numbers meant king top of the range top of the class but we’ve been in the turbocharged world for a while now and something like an s4 or a c43 even though it doesn’t have 472 horsepower like this it’s probably quicker it’s definitely quicker off the line with their all-wheel drive systems this is rear-wheel drive only the m340i which

Competes with this as well has the b58 motor which we’ve already demonstrated can destroy this engine because we’ve done an lc 500 versus supra drag race and spoiler alert the supra destroyed it and if you are just chasing acceleration numbers this paltry 4.4 seconds to 60 and i can only imagine you get that with the best traction in the world not only does it not

Match the cars i just mentioned we’re now into the electric world so if lexus had played the acceleration game just chasing numbers with this car they didn’t stand a chance so what they’ve done instead is go for emotion with this naturally aspirated 5 liter v8 red line almost seven and a half thousand rpm and it bangs off the rev limiter as it upshifts and it’s

Not an all-encompassing sound in the cabin it’s just there’s a there’s a tone to it there’s a note that lets you know you’re in a v8 and i know that it’s feeding that sound out of four exhaust tips which thomas and i disagree on a bit but i think they’re really cool now this transmission the eight speed is a 10 speed and an lc 500 and here we have the eight speed

And it is absolutely fine i don’t think it rewards manual shifting as much as just staying in auto if it weren’t for the fact that lexus is very good at paddle shifters and these are very satisfying to press however things like downshifts you know i’m in sport s plus right now which is the most aggressive if i downshift twice it’s a little bit slow but on the up

Shifts it’s fast enough okay so yeah it might not be as quick as nearly everything in its class but in the real world that’s still a ton of power and when it sounds like that who cares all right so in terms of power bit of a win the sound it makes well they’ve absolutely scored there as well but for the price that lexus is asking for this car it needs to have

That third thing it needs to be a hat trick yeah sorry thomas started this though and that third thing is lexusness that’s a word that is made up right now and what it means is that the car has to be comfortable and nice and it is probably the most important part about the listen the engine is unbelievable and i love it and i’ll pause what i was saying for a

Second so you can listen once more oh that’s just wonderful just a little bit of lfa in those downshifts just a bit anyway what i was saying is that the lexusness is the the comfort and the insulation and the ride and the ride in this car is really really good even though i’m in sport plus right now it’s supple supple is the most important word here because

What i mean by that is that there’s no bump on this road this is like a broken up back road that’s causing any form of jarring motion into my skull at all it’s comfortable but it’s not so soft that it’s not controlled it balances comfort and performance very very very well which means that this is an honest to goodness the hand on heart sport sedan in the good

Old-fashioned way here’s the thing the steering in an m340i is better than this it’s sharper the chassis control in an m340i is better than this the differential in an m340i is better than this this has a torso but it’s not as sophisticated as what bmw does but somehow everything about this is better than an m340i and that’s what we call unquantifiables the

Advantage to an m340i is that it’s all-wheel drive well i mean that’s an advantage depending on who’s asking because that right there is is what i want i also wouldn’t mind some snow tires so there’s a little bit more grip right now we’re on summer tires which means that i’m going to turn the traction control back on because there is enough power in this car to

Get you in trouble and that’s kind of why i like it because as i said this is just a front engine rear-wheel drive v8 sport sedan with a limited sub differential put all those things together turn the traction control off and you can have a huge accident that’s kind of what makes these things fun that’s why you’d want one not to have an accident but the edge the

Danger is there yes it’s an old recipe yes it could be updated but you don’t ask your grandmother to update the recipe of her blueberry pie at christmas because it’s still delicious last of its kind last risk i don’t say that because when you do every dealer just starts marking it up oh that’s right that’s already happened it’s already happened um okay so

It’s quite chilly it is quite chilly i have taken my gloves off just for this moment so i can be dexterous and point at things like this front end yeah so this is so not only is this the rs500 this is the launch edition so i think i think there’s 500 in north america oh so it’s quite a rare thing um it’s a strange coincidence is 500 500 launch editions yes it’s a

500 f sport performance i wonder if they know that anyway i i i’ve completely grown to like the new front end on this right i never disliked it i know at first i was like i didn’t know if i liked it or not but now i’m at this kind of especially with this with this paint this like kind of like flat not flat well i always get i always get these how do you say this

This is a non-metallic gloss gloss yes okay and this is the paint for this is the special for the launch edition it’s called incognito so you can go go in the car you can look at anything on your phone and no one knows anything about it oh really yeah all the sexy stuff like like other lexus models am i right am i right but yeah in this light it’s a bit it’s a bit

Yellow it’s kind of it’s not so much uh chalk as it is nardo grayish yeah so the thing is that when the light hits this car directly or any kind of like gloss non-metallic paint i find the car kind of gets a bit boring when the light hits it do what i mean as soon as you have like shade and angles and then you can really see the lines in the car and that’s when

This thing looks really good and this and this has cooler lines like this hood is more bolstered than the normal yeah yeah yeah yeah but interestingly i feel like you know i’m just realizing now because toyota have a similar color to this and they call it cement so they’ve obviously saved the good names for lexus yeah it’s probably the exact same color or within

A shot very soon they had like a dab of white just to change it technically right yeah um but we’ve got the 19-inch wheels we’ve got the black accents yeah and this is so this one of the few differences that makes this the is-500 is that it has a two-piece rotor right it’s not actually a two-piece rotor i mean it is but it’s not like a detachable two-piece rotor

It’s the way i understand it it is just literally two pieces but surely the more exciting thing is the quad exhaust is it though indicative of an f model is it is it more exciting because it could have been cool with real quad exhausts and then they like squish them a little bit what do you mean they’re like stacked that’s that’s the lexus look i don’t yeah no i

Know it’s not new to this but i just don’t like that i don’t know why i think it’s unique okay i’ll give unique yeah that’s that’s true um i think it’s handsome i think it stood the test of time which it had to do because it has been like 15 years i just aged really quickly um can we look at the interior now because it’s cold outside i don’t want to talk about

The other side anymore yeah sure okay okay this is the same as every other is anyway you know i’m glad that if you say in the bmw you also say it alexis oh yeah this this is this is old now it’s real old they they did a very important update with this making it a touch screen yeah that’s a touch screen now um which is still it’s still like last gen stuff though

It’s not it’s not like cutting edge or anything it is but with carplay yeah it’s good it’s fine problem solved um and other things that i always like in in in these cars even though they’re not new is that this gauge cluster is one of the coolest gauge clusters that has ever existed yeah i don’t think under 100 grand is there a moving physical gauge cluster over

A hundred i’ve never seen one other than this right like i love that you can that you can push this button and it oh my god that’s just so cool it just feels so special oh so this is this is number 331 out of 500 500. that that’s not a special number number one other than anything other than number one yeah but like the 50s the hundreds even then it’s still it’s

Either one or who cares or maybe five also because of that we’ve got wood trim on the steering wheel because it’s the launch edition we got the two-tone seats yeah right um and that’s that’s it anyway yeah not much to say in here just kind of like i think you and i have we’ve had a lot of conversations off-camera about this car yes because we’re not i’m not sure

About it you mean the is-500 in general in general well first of all dealer markup is just it’s just that’s not that’s not exclusive to this car no it’s all cars right it’s endemic more than it’s ever been yeah yeah there’s a pandemic and an endemic there’s a pandemic of dealer markup right now um and and it’s annoying which means that even at this prices but let’s

Talk about this at msrp if you’re coming if you’re coming from like an m340i i want this to be the best of everything so the mistake there is in the way you said that because you’re not coming from an m340i you are choosing this over an m340i very specifically that’s what i mean if you back to back this right you’d be like right but it’s a way all the feeding

Car for new car pricing and that’s where it starts to get difficult yeah but if you want a car that has a naturally aspirated v8 comfy suspension reliability and has apple carplay and this cool digital gauge cluster what else is there no and if you again if you think things if you think of it as like a four-door lc 500 with with one more horsepower then then it

Starts to make sense except this isn’t quite the interior of the rc5 the rc500 feels special inside listen this car is like one decision away from having a cassette player right so i i get what you mean but at the same time it’s i just kind of don’t care about most of it it’s the reliability it’s the reliability the naturally aspirated v8 the comfy ride the fact

That it is just a good old-fashioned honest-to-goodness sports sedan right right that’s that’s what i that’s what i really dig about this like the m340i even still um or what did we drive recently that was we weren’t emotional about the m340 i didn’t do it it didn’t do anything for the heart just for the head yeah exactly but when it comes to reaching into your

Wallet those are the two things that clash i know but again i think that those types of cars are reaching too far towards being the m versions of the amg version so they’re trying too hard to be ultra sporty like the m240i right that car is so close to being an m car what is the point of it right would you i was putting a point in the m car then before either

Of them this is like it’s loopy and it’s sloppy it’s it’s it’s a big v8 comfy sport yeah this feels like a normal is had sex with a scat pack challenger that’d be a really wow that’s that’s an image um anyway yeah i think that that’s why i like this so much because it’s not trying too hard to go in it doesn’t have any is there any oil coolers it doesn’t have any

Stuff that’s gonna make it for a track car and they know that and they’re honest about it and it’s way too much money i’ll give you that but it’s really cool when it’s the last v8 so yes but it’s so much money that if you’re getting the last of something it knocks it real close to the cadillac ct5v blackwing which is a manual supercharged thing wait how much is that

It’s like 87 canadian this is 77 canadian it’s it’s close but it’s bit but it’s bigger and when was the last time you’re in something this size that had a v8 that wasn’t a c63 which is now gone i mean yeah the back seats aren’t very comfortable yeah but the ct-53 black wing is so good and it doesn’t feel any bigger than this when you drive it i know but then you

Know but then the question is reliability and all that sort of stuff yeah so if you if you add reliability and totally get it if you don’t really care get a manual supercharged rear wheel drive tire killer that’s the answer i think for this car to make sense and for you to reach into your wallet either either the residuals have to be amazing or you have to be a

Fan boy you have to have nostalgia for the last naturally aspirated v8 is and you know what that is okay it’s also okay to want some good old-fashioned lexus reliability james and i both agreed afterwards that were we to only own a car for a couple of years then we’d still probably lean towards one of the germans but anything close to 10 years of ownership it’s

Not even a question it’s this and yeah we got into a bit of a discussion there but this car is an interesting one it’s expensive and thirsty and on paper is in pretty much every way behind the times and yet for the purists that’s its charm in their eyes whilst every other manufacturer in this class is releasing competent machines of apathy lexus has exercised

Empathy and created something they actually want just don’t be challenging an m340i to a traffic light race anytime soon until there’s an isf at least thanks for watching and we’re going to shake the screen right this isn’t this is just yeah yeah yeah absolutely don’t worry it’ll look great i think it would look weird if the screen is not shaking i think that’ll

Work that’ll work

Transcribed from video
2022 Lexus IS 500 Review // Old School Cool By Throttle House