Lexus LS460 SE-L review
Lexus LS 460 SE-L Road Test
Test date 10 January 2007
Price as tested £75,240
For Renfinement, equipment, technology, comfort
Against Steering, cabin ambience, gearbox
Back in 1989 the comfortable and refined LS400 announced Lexus to the world, making established luxury manufacturers sit up and listen. Four generations on, this car purports to do what Lexus has always threatened, and be the complete luxury package.
For the moment there’s just one LS model in three trim levels, starting at £57,000 and rising to £71,000 for this, the SE-L, which Lexus expects will account for 70 per cent of sales. The LS600h L – Lexus’s most expensive and powerful hybrid yet, with a 5.0-litre V8 and electric motors producing 443bhp – arrives this summer.
Translating the GS’s swooping curves and IS’s aggressive flanks onto a car measuring over five metres in length was always going to be difficult, but for the most part Lexus has achieved it. Although not as elegantly proportioned as an Audi A8 or arresting as a Merc S-class, the new LS now looks much more than a generic big saloon and has the same contemporary design language as the IS and GS. Perhaps still a touch bulbous from some angles, the overall shape successfully treads the line between obscurity and presence. The body is impressively slippery (0.26Cd), beautifully painted and built with consistently tight panel gaps.
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