Tests and Features

The compact luxury sports sedan segment is a copycat game. At the top of the food chain lies the BMW 3 Series. The other two German carmakers, Audi and Mercedes-Benz, keep gnawing at its ankles, and in some cases, beat it at its own game with the A4 and the …

While researching this review I remembered by a magazine ad I saw once. Shortly after the Lexus IS debuted in 2001 with the 3 Series as its stated target, I stumbled upon a humorous BMW ad depicting a hapless Lexus IS wearing a wolf costume next to the 3 Series.

Given that the luxury compact sedan segment is more popular than ever, there’s no room for error. All players have to be up to par, lest they drag the whole class down with them. And gone are the good old days when the E-Class ruled the roost. Sure, the E-Class …

Each Lexus model has a name composed of two letters, or three in the case of their high-performance variants. As you may expect, they’re not chosen randomly. For example, the very first Lexus vehicle ever made, the LS, meant “Luxury Sedan.” Simple, right? IS means “Intelligent Sport.” Why that slightly …

When we set afoot in the redesigned Lexus IS compact sedan three years ago, we were generally amazed at how close the Japanese brand came to rivalling the sportiness and refinement of the segment benchmark BMW 3 Series. Especially the IS 350, which had the performance and the handling to …

BAIE-SAINT-PAUL, Quebec – You'd be hard pressed to find two vehicles more dissimilar than the Lexus IS 300 AWD and the LX 570, which has been the top dog of the utility vehicle lineup for Toyota's luxury and prestige division for 20 years. The first is a svelte compact luxury …

Yours truly is heading east this week to drive the 2016 edition of all-wheel-drive Lexus models. Which ones, exactly? No idea yet, as Lexus’ invitation doesn’t specify. For now, it’s a mystery. Actually, Toyota’s luxury and prestige brand has plenty of choices with 11 models in its current line-up that …

Not so long ago, the mid-size sport sedan category was comprised of just two or three serious competitors, all of whom were German. Nowadays, every luxury brand has its own model and each brings its share of technology and theories on the right way to build this type of car.

Don’t worry, Lexus is not setting its sights on NASCAR! But that didn’t stop Toyota’s prestige brand from inviting automobile journalists out to Circuit ICAR. They wanted to let us test out a few of their creations—the ones that are best suited for track driving. Let’s take a closer look.

Just as its primary adversaries the Mercedes-Benz C-Class and (certain iterations of) the BMW 3 Series have taken a step back from the sport sedan brink, it would seem that the 2014 Lexus IS 350 F Sport has pushed forward into the breach. Long criticized as the softest entry-level luxury …