Lexus, a name rapidly becoming a synonym for smooth, has slipped a new car into the gap between its most expensive (the $48,733 LS400) and inexpensive (if the ES300, at $27,930, can be called inexpensive) automobiles. The new GS300, which officials of Toyota's luxury-car division view as a competitor to such roadrunners as the BMW 5-series and Mercedes-Benz 300s, will be priced "in the mid-thirties," according to Lexus boss J. David Illingworth.
The driving force behind this new driving machine was Hiroyuki Watanabe, whose advanced degree was in aerodynamics and who believes the airplane of Orville and Wilbur Wright to be the 20th century's most significant discovery. Watanabe, who wound up at Toyota instead of Mitsubishi because the Toyota company cafeteria offered tastier food, maintains that the luxury-car buyer has two basic demands: "an expansive, comfortable interior and a high level of performance." If there remains any doubt that Watanabe is swayed by the siren song of fast movement, consider that he also expresses devotion to "the exhilaration of driving."
View Price on AmazonThe GS300 looks every inch a Lexus, though it displays more visual personality than the LS400. The original design came from Giorgetto Giugiaro's Ital Design studios and received only minor tuning—primarily at both ends and on the aerodynamic rocker panels—at the hands of Lexus designers. The result is a car that looks expensive and aerodynamic (its drag coefficient is 0.31), and which verges on looking more Italian than Japanese, not surprising considering the design source.
Once you move to the inside and position yourself in the electronically adjustable leather (optional) seat, a cursory look around could lead you to believe that you're sitting in an LS400 and not a lesser car. This is not altogether an optical illusion; the GS300's interior measurements are close to those of its larger relative. It also has the same tilting and telescoping wheel, which automatically retracts itself to allow easy entry and exit. And the console, though differing slightly in button- and-switch design and placement, also looks distinctly like the LS400's.
The interior is blessed with dual front airbags and seatbelt pretensioners, and the ergonomic arrangement of all the controls is what we've come to expect from Toyota's luxury division—which is to say that the ergonomics are excellent. We're convinced that a being from another planet could sit down in a Lexus and figure out how things are meant to work before you could say Zarathustra.
Source: caranddriver.com
