Lexus RC chief engineer Eiichi Kusama has addressed the weight debate currently surrounding the new coupe — from Motoring Australia:

“How fun to drive is more important than the other things I think,” Kusama told motoring.com.au at least week’s RC launch in New York.

“But of course after launch if the market needs other performance, maybe in the future we think we study the other things.”

“Body structure, very good rigidity and passive safety and big diameter tyres, then the body weight becomes a little heavier,” Kusama explained. “But I think you don’t feel the weight so much.”

RC F chief engineer Yukihiko Yaguchi believes the vehicle’s safety features are the biggest factor when it comes to weight:

“It’s always better to be lighter, but for this purpose… safety, regulatory, that’s something we have to prioritise as well.”

The Lexus RC-F coupé arrives as Toyota's premium sub-brand turns 25. Until recently, this was a brand that had built its reputation on a series of impeccably engineered, but often vapid luxury cars. The carbon-bodied V10 LFA supercar changed all that. This Lexus did have soul, as well it should have at a third of a million quid a go. Barely 500 were built and Lexus reputedly lost money on every one.

But imagine if some of that passion could find its way into a more affordable, more useable Lexus coupé. Something along the lines of the BMW M4. That car is the new RC F, a high performance version of the RC coupé that is about to hit US showrooms, but whose European launch has been delayed while more palatable downsized four-cylinder engines are readied to replace the V6 offered elsewhere.

Downsizing wasn’t an option for the range-topping F. Unlike its German rivals, who have switched to smaller capacity engines, using turbocharging to make up the deficit, Lexus was committed to delivering the purity of response of a naturally aspirated engine.

So under the bonnet there’s a reworked version of the 5.0-litre V8 found in the recently departed IS F sports saloon. Here, it’s massaged to produce 465bhp, or 34bhp more than the BMW M4’s turbo six, and a thick-set 391lb ft of torque.


The Lexus RC F has a top speed of 168mph

That’s a strong showing for a naturally aspirated engine; unfortunately, the spec sheet is home to another large, but less welcome number. At a gargantuan 1,840kg, the Lexus weighs almost 280kg more than the BMW coupé, and only 25kg less than the M4 convertible. Stand on the right pedal and it’s clear that this coupé packs a bigger paunch than punch.

At 4.5sec to 62mph, the RC F is four tenths slower than its foe, and even then, it’s only when the rev counter is showing half of the available 7,200 spins left for grabs, that it feels genuinely rapid, the katana-sharp throttle response and soaring V8 growl suddenly vindicating Toyota’s decision to eschew turbocharging. The predictable downside is average fuel consumption significantly the wrong side of the 30mpg now expected form even top-level performance cars.

On track, the steering and brakes please while the heft and understeer disappoint. A torsen limited-slip differential is standard, while an optional torque-vectoring system subtly improves handling by spinning the outside wheels faster in corners, but there isn’t the straight-line performance to really tax it. On the road, the RC F is much happier. You still notice the lack of low-rev muscle in those snap overtaking manoeuvres, but the ride is supple, and the steering crisp.


Much of the Lexus RCF's interior is borrowed from the IS saloon

The interior, largely cribbed from the current Lexus IS saloon, with which the RC F shares the back third of its structure, is beautifully constructed but blighted by a fiddly laptop-style touchpad controller and a relatively cramped back seat.

The exterior is an equally mixed bag. It’s certainly eye-catching, but rather overwrought, benefitting, and I use the word judiciously, from the current corporate Lexus nose, an X-shaped cheese-grater grille that has been likened to the menacing mouth of the alien in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Predator.

If that’s not shouty enough, you can pay £8,000 over the £59,995 base price for the RC F Carbon, whose composite roof and bonnet save 10kg, but seem curiously out of step with the Lexus brand message.

Perhaps it will seem less so when a circa-600bhp twin-turbo super-RC F appears in due course. It took a decade to get the LFA right, so it stands to reason that the best of the RC F is yet to come.

THE FACTS

Lexus RC F

Tested: 4969cc, V8 petrol engine, eight-speed automatic gearbox, rear-wheel drive

Price/on sale: £59,995/December

Power/torque: 465bhp @ 7,100rpm/391lb ft @ 4,800-5,600rpm

Top speed: 168mph

Acceleration: 0-62mph in 4.5sec

Fuel economy: 17.5mpg/26.2mpg (EU Urban/Combined)

CO2 EMISSIONS: 252g/km

VED band: L (£860 first year, £485 thereafter)

Verdict: Like hand-painting an old banger, the RC F shines in parts, is too heavy in others, and just a bit patchy. Quality is up to Lexus’s usual standards, the engine is a joy in full song and handling is fundamentally sound, but it’s too big, too slow and too cramped to make BMW’s M4 lose any sleep

Telegraph rating: Three stars out of five stars

RIVALS

BMW M4, from £56,650
For years the default choice in this class and still the car to beat. Now lighter and faster than ever, but controversially powered by a turbocharged straight-six that lacks character compared with the previous V8.

Mercedes C63, from £58,500
Last gasp for Merc’s naturally-aspirated V8 in fine-handling C-class coupé body. Lack of frameless door glass spoils the premium feel; expect the new (turbocharged) one due next year to be even better.

Audi RS5, from £59,870
Like the RC F, the RS5 has a weight problem, but can at least lay the blame on its four-wheel-drive system. Hugely fast point-to-point, but frustratingly unengaging to drive.

The Lexus RC F loosely replaces the old IS F, and essentially it's Japan's intriguing and undeniably striking looking alternative to a BMW M3/M4.

Look beyond its arresting new nose and browse what's on offer objectively in the new £59,995 RC F, however, and you will immediately be struck by two thoughts. One, that it appears to represent an awful lot of car for the money. Two, that it is, despite what Lexus might claim, very much an old school kind of sports car.

Steve Sutcliffe
The RC F's naturally aspirated 5.0-litre V8 produces 471bhp and 392lb ft
Thought number one is entirely positive, of course, and arrives courtesy of the fact that the RC F looks a million dollars – both in photos and in the metal – and appears to be bursting at the seams with potential.

Lexus claims the car can hit 60mph in 4.5sec and has a top speed of almost 170mph, but that it is also one of the stiffest and most refined sports coupés the world has ever seen.

The gradual realisation of thought number two, however, is rather less welcome today than it might have been 10 years ago.

Back then, a brand new rear-wheel-drive coupé that's powered by a 5.0-litre V8 engine with 471bhp would have seemed like a mouth watering proposition.

Nowadays, such He-Man credentials no longer seem quite so relevant, and they certainly don't feel very cutting edge beside what's on offer from the faster, more economical, less polluting competition from Germany.

And perhaps the most baffling statistic of all about the RC F is its kerb weight – because at 1840kg it is a full quarter tonne heavier than the BMW M4/M3 with which it is so obviously intended to compete.

To be blunt, sending the RC F into battle with a compromise such as this to bear – against competition like that – almost seems like harakiri on Lexus' behalf.

The key question here is whether the Lexus RC F can belie such apparent technical antiquation by being suitably capable on the road, where it really counts.

In many ways, what you see is what you get. The RC F makes a fabulous noise and goes as hard as you'd imagine it might given that it has 471bhp and 392lb ft but weighs two tonnes with two people on board.

In a straight line it's at least a seven out of 10, with a snappy eight-speed gearbox that features all sorts of different drive modes plus that NASCAR soundtrack doing all it can to enhance the excitement factor whenever possible. But even in a straight line, a BMW M3 it is not. Not by a long chalk.

But that doesn't matter because it goes round corners beautifully and has delicious steering and handling so can be forgiven for weighing a bit too much because the driver involvement it provides makes an M3 seem boring by comparison, correct? Not quite.

On the track we drove on in the USA, which had been chosen specifically by Lexus to demonstrate the car's abilities, the RC F felt surprisingly clumsy near the limit, with shuddering brakes and nowhere near enough precision to its handling.

It was, to be honest, a bit of a disappointment at eight tenths and beyond, with neither the composure nor the thrill factor you'd hope for, despite featuring a new Torsen differential.

As a road car, though, the RC F makes much more sense. Its ride is supple in all but the most aggressive drive mode, of which there are four in total to choose from.

Its electric power steering is also accurate and precise without ever delivering much in the way of genuine interaction between your palms and the road below. And the noise and thrust from its V8 engine is pretty magical on occasions, while even the handling seems more incisive at lower, less strenuous road speeds.

As a pure road car, in fact, the RC F is a highly desirable, rapid, and really rather lovely thing to drive - with a mostly brilliant new interior and a level of quality inside that few if any cars at this level can match.

If Lexus made a little bit less of a noise about the RC F being a great track car, it would be far easier to accept it for the soothing and refined sports GT car that it unquestionably is. But as a track weapon alone it lacks teeth, and in this class that's either a major drawback or a mild disappointment, depending on what you expect from such a machine.

Overall the RC F struggles to compete with the M3 on too many levels to be classed as a genuine contender. Like the Lexus IS F it loosely replaces, it's an intriguing outsider, nothing more, even if it is powered by one of the most naughty sounding V8s money can buy.

And for the 170 people who Lexus hopes will buy one in the UK next year, none of this will matter much because, if nothing else, the RC F looks so compellingly different from the herd. This alone will make it appeal to a certain kind of customer; to someone who wouldn't be seen dead in an Audi or a BMW. And that's absolutely fine by us.

Lexus RC F

Price £59,995; 0-62mph 4.5sec; Top speed 168mph; Economy 26.2mpg; CO2 252g/km; Kerb weight 1840kg; Engine V8, 4969cc, petrol; Power 471bhp at 7100rpm; Torque 392lb ft between 4800-5600rpm; Gearbox 8-speed automatic with paddle shifters

At some point in the early 2000s, Lexus approached peak grandma. Cars like the SC convertible and the ES sedan were arguably its best efforts, just when Cadillac was brewing up a revival and BMW putting out some of its best machinery before electronic controls became a generation's voodoo curse.

A massive course correction came with the LFA. Sure, it took ten years and two body compositions to get it out the door, but even at triple its intended price, the LFA was evidence that Lexus had something more interesting in it than champagne glasses and ball bearings. The LFA influenced the rowdy IS F, then the smartly done GS F Sport followed.

Now Lexus is collating all that learning into the 2015 Lexus RC F Coupe. It's the V-8-laden, all-hands-on-deck version of its new two-door RC lineup. (RC probably winks and nods to radio-controlled cars, not intentionally to perennial fourth-placer soda brand RC Cola.)

The RC F is Lexus gone wild, with aero kicks and eight-cylinder barks and electronically controlled everything, as well as a cockpit basically decorated by dropping a box of high-end audio between two seats. It's all in the effort to draw comparison with the mighty BMW M3.

So is the Lexus RC F finally legit, or are its Bimmerphile come-ons just a fantasy? The legit answer is a qualified yes. The RC F is a lovely road car with a vast track performance envelope, but it still has its mass and its badge to contend with.

Strands in the hourglass

The RC has lots of Fs to give, and they show up first in the grille. Look close: it's an Escher-like weave of hundreds of little F-shapes. The strands mesh to lighten up the bulbous nose a little, no mean feat, since it wears the most outrageous Lexus hourglass yet--like it flew into a little black dress at highway speeds.

From other angles too, the RC F is the most compelling Lexus design since the LFA, even better than the first SC coupes from which it's descended. Coupe forms are naturally more attractive than their sedan counterparts. and the RC's roofline and the uptick at its rear fenders is all the proof needed. Curving, complex surfaces wrap around to the sculpted fenders and sides. The thick helmet it wears has some Cylon in it, like the Scion tC. The headlights have sharp little LED underlining for relief. It's just more interesting to study than an M4.

At the rear, the RC F shows off some of the aero benefit of its shape. The rear fins and vents break up the pretty, the stacked exhaust outlets add a touch of mean. There's a speed-activated wing that lifts at 50 mph (or in track mode, at 80 mph).

The cockpit adapts the IS sedan's conflicting horizontal and curved shapes into a well-fitted workspace. The steering wheel is slightly elliptical, the high-backed seats are stitched elaborately. In the RC F, a digital gauge cluster adapts to the driving modes selected, toggling and varying the size of indicators for gears, engine speed, tripometer, and stopwatch functions. The dash is embellished with an analog clock that took me at least 15 minutes to find--because it's analog, not because it's right in the middle of the dash.

Those conflicting themes don't coordinate as well as they could in the RC F. For all its resemblance to high-end audio, the center stack rides over the curved console frame--like a bookshelf fell and the components are hanging precariously. There's no trim line to continue the horizon line of vents across the passenger space. At least the controls--the hard controls, not the touch surfaces--are straightforward and operate with obvious intent.



Breathing naturally

Lexus probably hopes that the interior is fourth or fifth down the list of important attributes with RC F buyers. If they were all about the style and trim fits, they might as well buy the standard-issue RC 350, in rear- or all-wheel drive form, or in F Sport trim with the same choices. Undistinguished V-6 rumble aside, it's a pleasantly sporty coupe.

Don't bring that game to New York's Monticello Motor Club, a 4.1-mile course Lexus chose to show off the RC F's handling. Blessed with big curves and long straights and a few yumping switchbacks, it's a place that gives you plenty of time to dissect a car's handling. Seriously, houseflies have written memoirs in the time it takes to lap it once.

Stepping into the RC F is an intentional choice, an anti-BMW opt-in that's made all the more enticing by a naturally aspirated 5.0-liter V-8. It's a recasting of the former IS F V-8, growth-hormoned into 467 horsepower and 389 pound-feet of torque through bigger intakes, titanium valves, and reprofiled cams. BMW's twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter in-line six: a mere 425 hp, and a caustic engine note at that. This powerplant opens up with an airy snarl at about 4000 rpm, but like the BMW, it's sometimes calculated trickery. In its most edgy sport setting, the RC F's V-8 gets amplified, synthesized sound piped into the cabin.

This burly V-8 is all about hustle. There's not the same explosive force as the twin-turbo BMW, just mighty oomph. Zero to 60 mph hits in about 4.4 seconds, and the RC F redlines at 7300 rpm. It's two ticks quicker than the IS F--but a boosted M4 will skitter to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds. The RC F's top speed has been electronically limited to 170 mph.

It's also capable of running on a lean-burn cycle to boost fuel economy when it's not tooling around a track on the usual Otto cycle. Lexus says the lean mode lets it consume premium gas at a rate comparable to a 4.2-liter V-8. EPA-rated fuel economy for the 2015 RC F is 16/25 mpg city/highway and 19 mpg combined, not bad considering the RC F's portly 3,958 pounds, versus the M4’s 3,585-lb curb weight.

The engine is mated to an eight-speed automatic gearbox with paddle shifters. Does it shift as quickly as some of the eight-speeds bought from ZF? Not until it's been cycled through nearly all of the RC F's driver-selectable modes: Econ, Normal, Sport and Sport+. Sport mode will drops the car into a lower gear for cornering based on deceleration and yaw rates, letting you power out of a corner impressively, while Sport+ also enables quicker downshifts. You can also select Manual, which holds gears even at redline in second through eighth gears, and cuts shift times even more.

Traction gets all sorts of electronic attention in the RC F, from its stock Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires (255/35s front, 275/35-19s rear on ours; also Bridgestone Potenzas) to a standard Torsen limited-slip differential. An optional performance package adds a new torque-vectoring differential, a first for Lexus. In it, electric motors control clutch packs that can shift up to 100 percent of the power to an outside wheel, based on steering and yaw sensor input, all to get the RC F around a corner in tighter fashion. The TVD has three modes of operation: standard, slalom or track. Slalom's more like an autocross mode, with lots of darty output, but track mode's a cleaner interface for hard and fast driving. Still, it adds another 70 pounds to the hefty RC F--and the Torsen diff does a fine job of managing the rear wheels as it is.

The traction and stability control systems have their own variable modes, too, including the usual Normal, Sport, and a new Expert mode that turns off traction control. Finally, Lexus grants another mode, which turns off the stability and traction controls entirely, but Sport and Expert mode are where even their track experts suggest we'll make the best time.

In the handling department, the rear-wheel-drive RC F has front and rear wishbone and coil-spring independent suspension, with monotube gas-filled shock absorbers and ball-jointed stabilizer bars. Returned stabilizer bars, bushings, and new lower control arms are upgraded from the RC 350, and so are the 19-inch wheels and Brembo brakes (15 inches in front, 13.6 inches at the rear). The RC F's electric steering rack conforms to the multiple modes offered on the RC 350 F Sport.

Slip into the supremely tailored RC F sport seats, push the Start button, and the RC F rumbles to the life in the warm, genial way only a V-8 can. It's like a lullaby for the rich guys and gals that live in the planned neighborhood next door--spending a million bucks to sleep next door to the $50 million or more in sheetmetal they have parked inside the track compound.

Straight off the bat, slipping out of Monticello's pits, the RC F feels as settled as it does on public roads--where frankly, it outshines an M4 or even a 4-Series Coupe with M Sport add-ons. It has a lighter touch on the pavement, almost underdamped in the way it springs slightly over small bumps.

It's beyond the first wide left-handers where the differences with an M4 clear up, where the BMW asserts better suspension development and especially, steering accuracy.

The RC F's steering and damping are Lexus' best yet. They're still shy of BMW's standard, as if they were pegged to the last-generation M3, not the lighter and spiritually re-centered new one. The RC F's steering weight buildup across its modes is moderate, and doesn't really impart any more information. Road America--where I drove the M4--doesn't have the big, unsettling, quick elevation changes that Monticello has, but it showed off the M4's tracking and zeal for attacking corners via its steering box.The elusive ride/handling combination remains its secret sauce.

The RC F doesn't feel as much like a carver. The Torsen limited-slip setup maintains so much control over the rear end, the lure of steering by right foot with the torque-vectoring differential isn't as strong, especially since it exaggerates the RC F's suppler setup. That setup works as well or better than BMW's in all sorts of conditions--except these conditions, cresting blind esses or cutting off a corner in a deep off-camber dive to the left exit.

More distinction: numbers aren't always data. The RC F's whomping V-8 outguns the M3's supremely flexible turbo six, but the BMW's carrying around a few hundred pounds less. That fact doesn't just leap off the spec page--it wends its way through every response generated by the RC F's less nailed electric steering, by every ride motion that's not quite as expertly damped.

It's more like a Bimmer than Lexus has ever managed--and that's a victory--but the RC F still is not as neural an experience as being wired into the driver seat of an M4.



Helmet shelving

Built on the same 107.5-inch wheelbase as the 2015 RC coupe, the RC F shares its Lexus GS front-end layout, its crossbraced IS C midsection, and its IS sedan rear suspension setup. It nets out some 2.7 inches shorter than today's IS sedan, and 1.1 inches wider.

Space isn't shy for front-seat passengers, and shouldn't be in a car that weighs in at just south of 4,000 pounds even with an optional carbon-fiber reinforced plastic roof and rear wing and a dose of high-strength steel. She's a brick house. Those front seats we've gone on about? Sit in them, they're excellent, with lots of stitching going on to mimic musculature. They look a lot like the racy chairs you can buy for your office, super-wide and with big bolsters and shoulder wings that appear to fit a really wide range of body types.

The rear seats are nicely stitched shelves for a helmet. It's a coupe, after all. The back seats do split and fold to hold longer objects, but there's not much more to be made from the RC F's meager 10.4 cubic feet of trunk space. Lexus says it'll hold two golf bags with the rear seats up.

Safety and other nice things
Elsewhere, the RC F benefits from a generation of upgrades, both to safety systems and infotainment gear, and suffers some foibles that are more common in this Lexus era than any other.

The RC F has eight airbags and active braking systems that work together with the car’s adaptive cruise control. There's also a rearview camera, to mitigate the terrible rearward visibility. That rear camera view displays on a 7-inch LCD screen with a big frame of black around it--as if it's waiting to be swapped out for a 12-inch display, as if someone forgot to hit the Zoom button on the TV remote when they upgraded to HD. It's even off-center to the stack.

The Lexus Enform infotainment system at least ditches its mouse in this iteration for a Remote Touch input pad that allows swipes, pinches, zooms, and other now-customary gestures. It still feels out of sync with what's on the screen, and the screen could use an artistic reskin more fitting with the Lexus brand.

As for luxury fittings on the RC F, leather is an option. So are ventilated seats, the speed-sensing rear spoiler, blind-spot monitors, and navigation. There's also an available upgrade to the base 10-speaker sound system--a 17-speaker Mark Levinson system that produces 835 watts of sound.

Those prices can drive up an RC F from its base of $63,325 to nearly $70,000. That still leaves it a couple of grand cheaper than the M4, which starts at $65,125, closer to the run-out prices of today's Cadillac CTS-V Coupe, Audi RS 5, and Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Coupe.

For a decade, Lexus made its name on refinement. It advertised that its cars could balance a champagne glass--a pyramid of them--on the hood. Priorities have changed, and at least part of the Lexus division is charged now--charged with putting its grandma days behind it, expressing some new ideas about what Lexus can be.

As long as those new ideas include things like 467-hp coupes--better to leave that one-note image behind.

Lexus RC F chief engineer Yukihiro Yaguchi has confirmed that a CCS-R variant of the coupe will be built — from Motoring Australia:

Yaguchi confirmed the two RC Fs would share the same engine and eight-speed automatic transmission and the same outputs. If it follows the example of the IS F CCS-R, then the RC F version will be considerably lightened, have bigger brakes and substantial suspension tuning capability for motorsport.

“The CCS-R will carry over the stock engine and transmission and basically be suited for track driving, but for someone to be able to hop in and drive quite easily and be able to get comfortable.”

Not an unexpected move — a RC F CCS-R will be the third racing variant of the coupe, joining the GT 500 from Super GT and the RC F GT3.

A black Lexus RC F with the full carbon fiber package has been spotted in Europe — there’s the above photo taken from the RC F Facebook fanpage, and a couple more photos of the super coupe aboard the SS Rotterdam in The Netherlands:

(An Obsidian RC F would be the only time I would consider the carbon fiber roof — tint the windows, opt for the gun metal wheels, and BOOM one scary blacked-out missile blasting down the road.)

Lexus provided Motor Trend with an RC F updated with its final powertrain tuning for a raw performance test:

It turns out we were able to achieve faster numbers than in the previous test. This time, our RC F hit 60 mph from a standstill in just 4.3 seconds, a 0.2 second improvement over the first RC F we had in our possession. Previously, we had noted that the RC F’s competitor, the BMW M4, scoots from 0-60 mph in 4.0 seconds, while the all-wheel-drive Audi RS 5 comes in even quicker at 3.9 seconds.

When it comes to the quarter mile, the Lexus RC F managed 12.7 seconds @ 112.2 mph. This is a bit off the BMW M4, which completes the task in 12.2 seconds, and the Audi RS 5’s 12.3 seconds.

The RC F is 400 lbs. heavier than the M4 and only .3 seconds slower? Seems pretty amazing to me, but I have to ask — does anyone out there actually think these numbers make a difference outside of paper racing?

Smoking Tire founder and DRIVE TV host Matt Farah has released his Lexus RC F video, and it’s extremely positive:

(Should note that there’s an extended 10-minute version of this review on DRIVE +, the subscription-only Youtube channel — don’t know that I’d signed up just to watch, the video above covers the key parts.)