Fans of the Lexus IS-F, sad day indeed, as Lexus has officially stopped production of the IS-F. After the death of the Lexus LFA back in 2012, the IS-F was Lexus’s lone performance car. Lexus also has several F Sport models, but these are not full fledged like the LF-A and the IS-F.
Head of design was Yukihiko Yaguchi, the same man who penned the Toyota Supra, the Lexus IS-F was Lexus’s answer to BMW’s M3 and Mercedes-Benz’s C63 AMG. It was powered by the Toyota 2UR-GSE, a 5L V8 producing 416hp and 503NM of torque. The only transmission offered was a 8 speed automatic gearbox, which did give the IS-F a better advantage over the BMW M3 and Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG, at that time. Pretty impressive, on paper, at least, but the IS-F did not gain many updates for 2014, while the competition had yearly updates and upgrades. To add salt to the wound, even the regular Lexus IS had a complete overhaul.
Perhaps, customers did not see Lexus as a performance brand, as about 11,000 units were sold since it’s launch. In comparison, a total of almost 58,000 BMW M3s (E90) has been sold. The last car, build in Japan, was destined for one lucky owner in the USA.
Sad news aside, Lexus has already teased us with the RC-F. Read more about the Lexus RC-F here.
