The Lexus, it is fair to say, never caused a scramble for its keys in its 12 months here at evo. But while it was never anyone’s first (or second, or third…) choice if they wanted to get their pulse racing, most agreed it had its place when a comfortable, confident mile-muncher was required. In fact the IS handled well enough – indeed in the wet it could be ‘surprisingly lairy’ (that’s a road testing term, apparently). What it really lacked was a bit of fire in its belly. It was just a bit underpowered.

GP55’s relaxed character was further enhanced by its optional ‘multimedia pack’ (a mere £2710), which included satnav, a rear-mounted camera to aid parking, a 14-speaker audio system, a 7-inch touch-screen interface and voice activation – all of which will be sorely missed. Once you got used to looking forwards while going backwards, the reversing camera was particularly useful. Meanwhile the satnav worked perfectly 99 per cent of the time (I’ll put the other 1 per cent down to pilot error) and the stereo played my Take That CDs as though the guys were in the car with me. Sadly they weren’t…

Unfortunately our Lexus blotted its copybook by having to have its gearbox replaced halfway through its time with us after the original ’box developed a particularly stiff shift action and a nasty habit of jumping out of fourth gear. We haven’t heard of others with the same problem, so maybe we were just particularly unlucky. Maybe the auto ’box option would have suited the car’s nature better anyway…

Overall, though, at £29,420 our IS represented good value and, gearbox glitch aside, proved that as a refined mile-eater it really can hold its own against the BMW and Mercedes opposition.