Percy

Hi guys!

Just had a chance to test drive quite a few cars. This was an event sponsored by Cadillac and Motor Trend. Of course, Motor Trend had to "plug" Cadillac and it's cars, but after the demo it was all fun!

Arlington Park in Illinois is where the event took place. HUGE parking lot for all of the horse racing fans and this was converted over to a 4 course driving test. Rules...you MUST wear a seatbelt and that any reckless driving will be reprimanded. This meant hitting too many cones or out of control skids, etc. The tracks had lots of high and low speed turns so you could really push the car. Some of the turns are so sharp that you literally had to almost stop the car in order to get control of the vehicle.

First up. BMW 540i automatic. After getting clearance from the track coordinator I immediately tromped on the throttle. Very good pickup and accelleration but as soon as I hit the first corner...woah...this thing handled PRECISELY. Steering feedback was excellent and so was the handling. Very taught suspension and little body roll. Excellent. Even through the very tight turns this car let you know exactly where you are. I didn't like the control arrangement though...lots of little tiny buttons and switches. Suspension was awesome though! The pedal/fly by wire system had to be improved though. About twice the delay that was present in the LS430.

Lincoln LS. What a piece of crap! Underpowered and the steering felt very overboosted. Almost no feedback through the wheel and it was like driving an old Buick. This was supposed to be a sporty car?!?! Yeesh.

Lexus LS430. INCREDIBLE. Very very very quiet with the buttery smooth 4.3 liter 290hp engine. Even with the sunroof open this car made almost NO noise. Even road noise has a hard time getting in. Pedal response was BETTER than the 540i and almost as fast in terms of accelleration. I expected a mushy and heavy body roll from the LS430 but NO. Handled quite well, a very close 2nd to the 540i! Steering feedback was quite good and everything melded together like a car was supposed to feel like. (IMO, of course!) Of all the cars on the track, this was my favorite. As soon as I got out of the car I suggested to 3 young ladies to drive the car. Their reaction was like "but...it's a Lexus". So, they hopped in and took a test run. The first young lady...as soon as she pulled up 10 feet into the track I could see a HUGE grin on her face. About 2 minutes later, she got out of the car, hopped up and down and said "I LOVE THAT CAR!!!!" I didn't stick around to see the other ladies test drivng but I'm sure the response was similar.

Mercedes S430. Why did I even bother?!?!? Heavy body roll, accelleration was quite a bit slower than the Lexus LS430. Steering felt vague. At times I thought I was going to hit a cone (or series of cones) due to the vague feedback. Blech.

Cadillac Catera. This was on a time lap test so I figured why not. You get two laps and that's it. Average time was 22.5 seconds for the course. If you beat 20.3 seconds (by a Motor Trend editor) then you get a Tshirt. First lap....big mistake. I tried to torque/brake the car, only to have it launch, squeal and kick in the traction control. This cost me BIG TIME. 26.6 seconds for the first lap due to the traction control shutting EVERYTIHING down. As soon as I pulled up you could see storm clouds above my head! I asked the lady if there was any way to defeat the traction control and she said no. Oh well. Time for the second lap. No brake torque, just a outright simple launch. Went throught the cones a bit faster and the end result was a 22.1 second time. Average. There were 3 people who beat me but two of them were cheating. You had to be at a FULL STOP before starting the course. These 2 were already at 10 to 15mph before tripping the start sequence. Then there was a 40+ year old lady who got 21.5 seconds on the track but she hit a couple of cones. So much for hand eye coordination!

Then it was time to go home. I was heading out to the parking lot and I saw one of the guys that was test driving. He said "you're right...the Lexus LS430 is the BEST car out on that lot!" My Dad asked if he was going to buy one and he said yes.

Chalk another one up for Lexus. And at a Cadillac sponsored event!

Percy
Glad to be back in my modded GS400.
ZERO cones hit in the drive.

Crossposted in both GS and LS forums.

LOTC

Yes Percy the LS has always been deceptive looking in terms of performace,they look at it and say to themselves look at this big long boat it has so much body roll it might even roll over and how the heck am i suppose to drive this car in the twists at high speeds, but for is big bulky appearance it has great handles.the LS has always been so quiet and smooth it could put you to sleep when your in it