When it comes to how the car drives, the difference is less obvious. You might expect the AWD would change the handling characteristics, but it isn’t noticeable. The steering is no heavier and no less communicative, and there’s no hint of torque steer. An advantage of the full-time all-wheel drive system is you’ll never feel the front axle connecting and disconnecting, which means it won’t upset the handling. A disadvantage is a small penalty in fuel economy, which is already slightly low for the class. Understeer is still the default when you test the limits.

That’s what F Sport is. Here’s what it does: Our long-term F Sport needed 5.6 seconds to hit 60 mph and 14.0 seconds flat to run the quarter-mile, trapping at 99.8 mph. You’ll note, though, that this is slower than the IS 350 AWD it replaced in the long-term fleet. That car, with its all-wheel-drive grip, got a much better launch and hit 60 mph in 5.3 seconds on the way to a 13.9-second quarter mile at 99.4 mph. The rear-wheel-drive F Sport had some trouble putting the power down, something I think better tires would’ve helped, perhaps Potenzas instead of Turanzas.