Richie

There is an article ans some nice pics (3 wheelin') of a GS430 sport.

It's a UK magazine, don't know if you guys get it.

Letsride

Scan it! Scan it! Scan it!

RON430

Also, pretty interesting comments on the GS430 Sport. Overall, they don't feel it competes with the European brands (not much of a surprise) but if you pay attention to what they say, they actually liked it quite a bit with the mods which I assume are pretty much in the L tuned league. What is interesting is that most of the mods to that GS are in the same league as many of us have made. They make a comment about the current GS chassis being a pretty good piece which is also a surprise.

Richie

That's true.
The biggest problem they have is with the transmission I think.

Sorry Letsride, I do not have a scanner .

veritek

Richie, you teaser!! heheh.

Richie

LOL, sorry dude. Someone other then me must have bought the magazine and have a scanner!!

RON430

Like I said, not much of a surprise to us here but Europeans are definitely geared more toward smaller engines and manual trannies for a lot of reasons. Just putting a manual in the GS would improve its scores a lot but Lexus (just like bimmer and merc) knows that the customer base is far more receptive to autos. I thought all their negative comments were acceptable knowing their orientation but I was still surprised that they like the GS as much as they did. I just got back from Europe where I also saw the new five and I have to agree with another thread that it looks worse in person than it does in the pictures.

Richie

In Europe they dislike manual trannies in big sedans just as much as in the US.
The problem of the writer/test driver was the lack of driver control over the gearbox and that it would stay in a high gear for too long.
I was also surprised they liked the GS as much as they did because of pro European attitude of most magazines.
I agree with you on the new 5, it doens't look too good.

RON430

Of course the other issue is that little bit more mileage which does make a difference in Europe as well. Very few performance oriented folks would opt for an auto but when you are in two or three miles of stop and go, clutches just aren't a lot of fun.

The thing that surprised me the most was that I thought the front end on the new five might be sort of stylish. In person it just doesn't work well at all. The amount of front end from the lights down looks bigger than the photos and pretty clumsy to my eye. Oh well, that's somebody else's problem.