Drive Test: Lexus RC F (2019) is a sheep in wolf’s clothing

Is the RC F the closest Lexus to the LFA

Yes, but that’s still very, very far away to ply the word influencer. In broad strokes the new RC F is aimed at the BMW M4 and Mercedes C 63. Like all sporty Lexuses, there’s of lick of a Gran Tourer flavour to its arsenal as well as some other unique characteristics that see it take a less than head-on approach to the super family coupe formula.

Like the 5.0-litre V8?

From a brand that pushes more mild hybrid systems in their SUVs than any other brand in SA, the 5.0-litre V8 gives the eco pendulum a firm swing in the opposite direction. Not a very new engine which many of us got to know in the IS-F which at the time was up against normally aspirated M3s, RS 4s and C 63s. Since then they’ve all made the switch to turbo charging, rather successfully we might add.

Noise might be a reason to own a normally aspirated V8 and sure the new Lexis RC F is mature and barrel-chested, but it doesn’t bark or rattle the tops of the suspension mounts.  Pretty soon you’ll realise whether you miss the garrulous pops and crackles of a modern sportscar, or you don’t. It’s a pretty apt metaphor for the rest of the package.

Torque is without exception the sensation you miss The bit it does have gets meatier as you unpack the rev range by shifting through eight long gears – the first couple cogs not troubling the traction control. After that, road permitting, its pulse quickens, swooping you up in a chorus of acceleration without the face-rearranging. In any situation it’s possible to lead-foot the accelerator with zero regard for what carnage might occur at the rear tyres. That’s reassuring, as the RC F carries onwards tidily, certainly in the dry, as if it was all-wheel drive. All safe. Predictable.

We drove the cars at the coast where figures of 0-100kph in 4.5 seconds were always likely to flatter. That makes the RC F Lexus’s fastest car on sale but it’s nearer the performance of a C 43 AMG or BMW 440i than the fully ripened versions.

Surely that’s still enough

Especially since we’re forever complaining how unusable cars have become, or the compromises they need to endure in areas like comfort just to set these superfluous Nurburgring records. The RC F then seems to tick a lot of sense in that 6/10nths area where it’ll be mostly driven by most drivers. Push it harder and things start to unravel as its performance credentials come under practical examination.

At the track?

For a rear-wheel drive Radical Coupe, the RC F wont relent to any oversteer until the last possible moment. The front tyres work extra hard as they slip-grab-slip-grab for what seems an eternity, requiring a patient approach if hitting apexes is your goal.  Through the basic driving modes there’s little you can do to change the situation; a tweak of throttle response and firmer damper settings don’t mask its size. There’s a lot of weight (far forward) to cajole under braking and because the controls aren’t any sharper than before you’re forever sweeping up the wobble that’s just occurred in your rear-view mirror rather than focussing on what’s directly ahead.

Hence the Track Edition?

Despite the menacing visual upgrades, the Track Edition doesn’t nail the RC-F’s inherent jiggle onto a stiffer piece of cardboard, even if it tips the scales some 80kg lighter, dons carbon bonnet and is slowed down by carbon ceramic stoppers. That carbon fibre is placed where its effects are greatest – the roof, bonnet and boot – but if you really want to build a BMW M4 GTS competitor the rear seats need to go. They’re quite impractical for humans as it is. Track rubber would be another minimal requirement.

You find the car extra skittish when the Track’s damper setting is enabled making it about as difficult to control at speed as the car’s infotainment scratch pad. I don’t know who calibrated this wrecking ball of a suspension setting but if it’s too firm around a racetrack, I grimace at the thought of these 20-inch wheels hitting the entry to a storm water drain. So with that one element in the Track’s cachet turning out to be a minus rather than a plus the difference between the two cars is not as day and night as we’d hoped, certainly not when R700 000 separates them.   

Are those red seats?

On the Track Edition but the standard model we drove to and from the track was finished in white leather and covering the best supportive seats in the segment – a virtue we now take for granted in a Lexus.  Once again the amount of model-to-model inconsistency is the real bugbear; the RC F digging up relics like a foot-operated handbrake and the Track version fitted with manual steering adjustment. Lexus’s designers take evil joy in hiding buttons in places you’re unlikely to think of resulting in a user experience that’s fraught with confusion. Now we’re not asking for gesture control or nine stages of traction control, but Lexus is due a technology revolution if it wants to grab the attention of the younger generation.

Verdict

Not much has changed, really. We still feel that same tingle run through our bones by the styling which could never be mistaken for anything but Japanese, but this is only a temporary distraction from the fact that the RC F is not a new car, carrying over many of the flaws from its marriage of components and software. You might like the overall friendliness from a sheep in wolf’s clothing but then why not buy an RC 350? The Track Edition should have seized the chance to echo the RC Fs racing in the Japanese domestic series, except that its conversion never goes deep enough to explain the massive price difference.