Specifications
Would suit:
Not very good accountants
Price:
£25 200 (about R284 000)
Maximum speed:
215km/h, 0-100km/h in 8.9sec
Combined fuel consumption:
6.3 litres/100km
So I was coming home from the shops the other day and who should I see walking towards me but Jack Nicholson, a leggy blonde on each arm. I stopped him and asked if I could take a picture of us together on my cellphone, we got chatting and, would you believe it, he invited me to lunch!
That was great but then, as I was going to the toilet, a waitress beckoned me into a broom cupboard where...
OK, OK, that was a cheap trick. I know you will have realised I'll be telling you about a Lexus diesel. But wait - don't go! The new IS220d is really, really interesting, honest.
The brochure says it is "the latest expression of the L-finesse design philosophy", and that Vehicle Dynamics Integrated Management is standard on the Sport version. It claims to have the world's first dual-chamber passenger crash bag, too, and it's the first in its class to have knee bags.
And, um, well, that's about it really. To paraphrase John Lennon talking about Ringo Starr, the IS220d isn't the best four-door sedan in the world; it isn't even the best four-door sedan in the Lexus range. But it does have a great deal to recommend it.
There's the usual reassuring build quality, for instance. Lexus doesn't just make cars, it sculpts eternal monuments. Nobody does clinical, soulless efficiency better than Lexus, and its cars regularly top the JD Power surveys, so you know from the start that this is a car that will last longer than the Duracell bunny.
When talking monkeys rule the planet, Charlton Heston will glimpse a Lexus badge in the rubble and, realising the truth of our environmental folly - that we didn't do enough to cure bovine flatulence - he will start it and drive off.
Where was I? Actually this is an important car: this is the first Lexus diesel - long overdue in a market sector dominated by oil-burners - and its first four-cylinder engine. It is quick, frugal and "gutsy in the low range", as Autocar might put it.
Unfortunately, it still sounds like a 1970's Mercedes taxi and no amount of gears (it has six, by the way) will hide that.
Something special
You would think Lexus would come up with something special after taking Lexus so long to develop a diesel (it has just unveiled the world's first hybrid luxury saloon, the LS600, for instance) but this is an old-school diesel - or at least, that's how it will sound to the neighbours on a cold winter morning.
The best-of-breed BMW 320d is more refined and uses 0.8litre/100km less. Bearing in mind that these are cars are bought by accountants - either for themselves or as part of a company fleet - one can imagine the Lexus might struggle.
It doesn't get much better on the motorway where the engine continues to intrude like a kind of coarse, low-level tinnitus. Thank heaven for the "Mark Levinson" stereo that turns the IS220d into a mobile concert hall.
I have no idea who Mr Levinson is and I have never seen his name outside of a Lexus cabin but he makes a damn fine sound system. If only the car that carried it was as impressive. - The Independent, London
- Toyota SA has no plans to bring the IS220d to South Africa at present.