First Drive: Lexus IS 250 and 350 convertibles
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“Live a little, a lot.” No it’s not the new slogan for Las Vegas; a zero-calorie, eat-’em-all-day chocolate bar or a website arranging illicit rendezvous. Rather, it’s the slogan for the new Lexus IS 250C and 350C that you can expect the company to begin slinging throughout the advertising ether for the summer.
Yet after spending a day throwing various 250C and 350Cs around the hills and coastline of Newport Beach, I would borrow from the Army a different slogan for Lexus’ latest effort in open-air motoring: “Be all you can be.”
To wit: The IS 250C and 350C are entirely competent variants of the IS sedan given what Lexus had to work with. And Lexus gets extra credit for hitting a key price point with the base IS 250C. But the accomplishments end there, despite some expensive attempts by the luxo automaker to reel in performance-oriented customers headed toward a BMW dealership.
We reviewed the aesthetics of the IS convertible when it made its U.S. debut at the L.A. Auto Show and have been eager to get behind the wheel since.
Also noticeable, at a variety of speeds, was cowl shake, though any time you chop off the roof of a vehicle, you’re going to get flex. We just would have expected less, given Lexus’ attempt to stave flex off with a thicker rocker panel and a variety of underbody braces, reinforcements and box beams throughout.
So what’s the high point of the 250C? What it takes to get you into one, which is less than you’d think. With a starting MSRP of $38,490 (excluding the $850 destination fee), Lexus proudly, and rightly so, touts it as the only hardtop luxury convertible south of $39K. Producing a convertible variant is a necessary business move for Lexus, and doing it while hitting a key price point should help with at least pulling people into dealerships for a look. It’s also likely that nearly every buyer of the 250C won’t give a hoot about strained engines or shaking chassis.
Those looking for more power should head for the 350C. Again, it’s the same engine and transmission as the 350 sedan; 306 horsepower and 277 pound-feet of torque mated to a slightly beefier six-speed sequential shifter. The bump in oomph over the 250C is certainly appreciated and lends a more rounded drive quality to the convertible, and the upgraded tranny allows quicker, crisper shifts. Cowl shake is still noticeable, and the downside of the added power is that it makes it easier to reach the limits of what the electronic nannies will allow.
The big daddy of the day was a fully-loaded IS 350C onto which Lexus bolted nearly its entire F-sport catalog, including brake upgrades, carbon-fiber engine cover, performance exhaust, sport shocks, lowering springs, sway bars and forged alloy wheels. The result was the best-looking, -sounding and -driving IS this side of the IS F. The problem? By adding more than $13,000 to the sticker price of a loaded IS 350C, you’re paying nearly $64,000 out the door. You know what high-performance hardtop convertible starts at $66K and could drive circles around this pimped 350C? A hint: It rhymes with ‘schmem schmree.’ (OK, it’d be $69K for the M3 with the double-clutch auto.)
Based on the chassis, engines and transmissions Lexus had to work with in creating the IS Cs, they are indeed Lexus being all they could be. Given the price point of the 250C and the smooth equilibrium of the 350C, it shouldn’t have a problem hitting its sales goal of 1,000 customers a month who want to “live a little, a lot.”
In dealerships at the end of May.
-- David Undercoffler
For the record: An earlier version of this post said drivers cannot turn off the IS C’s VSC. This is, in fact, possible to do.