Lexus IS F-Sport road test review

What is it?A Lexus IS250 saloon with looks inspired by the IS-F. It features lowered suspension, new 18-inch wheels, a lowered grille and a small bootlid spoiler. Inside there are aluminium pedals, a new steering wheel and more supportive seats covered Alcantara with leather sides. It costs £29,365.

Technical highlights?Mechanically it’s all the same. The oil-burning IS220d can also be had in F-Sport grade, but it does without the lowered suspension.

What’s it like to drive?Er, not brilliant. The engine and gearbox were both uninspiring before, so we reckon this is the area they should have been looking to upgrade. The engine feels gutless and wheezy and the gearbox is slow and unresponsive, and now they’re fitted to a car that looks like it should be faster. The suspension drop allied to larger wheels has ruined the ride - it’s now hard and annoyingly choppy. How does it compare?Unfavourably. It’s certainly no IS-F (slippy slidey review of that here).Anything else I need to know?The sat-nav system has been upgraded - like the rest of the range – and now uses a 40GB hard drive to cover Europe in more detail. You can also upgrade the sound system to a  spiffing 14-speaker Mark Levinson job, which might distract you from the rest of the F-Sport’s performance.

Specifications