When word leaked out that Toyota was planning a competitor for Europe's large luxury sedans, the initial response was that the car wouldn't be a threat, as the new brand, Lexus, lacked a history. The thinking was that luxury car buyers weren't just buying a car, they were buying a pedigree.

Then the car arrived and through a combination of extreme refinement and an (initially) ultra-low base price, achieved an unexpected degree of success.

But the naysayers were not dissuaded. The Lexus LS 400 might be smooth and relatively silent, but it was also soft and numb. In short, it was not a car for people who enjoy driving. Instead, it was an extreme incarnation of the Detroit's traditional conception of luxury, not Germany's. In addition, its exterior styling lacked distinction: much was clearly borrowed from the current or previous Mercedes S-Class.

This charge remained through redesigns for the 1995 and 2001 model years. Each time Toyota added gadgetry, power, and refinement, but the basic character of the car remained the same. The 2001 design, while offering the richest interior yet with some packages, managed to imitate a design that Mercedes itself had forsaken as excessive and lacking in grace.

For 2007, Lexus has introduced a fourth-generation LS. They've bumped the power and touted a new, more dynamic design language. But does the car break new ground for Lexus, is it just a further evolution of the same basic car?

For the first time, the LS is available in both regular and extended wheelbase versions, just like the Europeans. To discover the character of the new car, I took a regular wheelbase sedan for a spin.

Styling

To my eye, only with the optional 18-inch five-spoke wheels did the 2001-2006 Lexus LS 430 exterior not appear plain, even ugly. Compared to that slabsided car, the 2007 LS 460 is more dynamically styled, but what wouldn't be? Despite Lexus' claims, though, the new design is little if any more original than its predecessors. Only the inspiration has changed, from Mercedes to BMW. Well, I guess that's one way to convey that Lexus intends the new car to be something of a driver's car. The new LS might be a bit more attractive than the 7-Series it mimics, but then the 7 hasn't been winning design awards. When I first saw spy photos of the car, I thought it might be strikingly attractive. But after seeing the actual car, it seems more safe and middle-of-the-road than anything else.

Lexus has been more of a design pioneer inside its cars, with a focus on usability, and the new LS continues this tradition. They might have copied BMW on the outside, but there's no Bavarian influence to be found on the inside. Unlike in most competitors at this point, there's no iDrive-like master control knob. There's also no unsightly secondary binnacle over the nav system screen, though this screen is mounted ergonomically, at the very top of the center stack (a placement the previous LS might have pioneered). Instead, the interior is a mix of Toyota and Jaguar. Not quite warm or strikingly beautiful, but a very pleasant place to be. I especially like the organic curves that form the outline of the center stack.

In the previous LS, I felt that the optional (and pricey) semi-aniline leather made the interior. Not only did it feel rich and soft to the touch, but it covered the otherwise non-upholstered door-mounted armrests and center console. This elevated the ambiance of the interior from ultra-Camry to true luxury.

With the new LS, the nice leather is only available in the extended wheelbase car. So the car I drove was upholstered with hides nicer those you'll find in a Camry, but not much nicer. An upholstered center console is now standard, but the door-mounted armrests are a non-upholstered molded vinyl whose coarse "grain" doesn't fit the character of the rest of the interior. How did these armrests end up in this car? It seems one detail slipped by the usually detail-oriented folks at Lexus. Many mainstream cars these days have nicely padded armrests, but not the big Lexus.

I do not know if the extended wheelbase's Luxury Package, which includes the nice leather, also includes upholstered armrests.

The car I drove paired a black exterior with a light gray / charcoal wood interior. For many people smoke-colored wood is an acquired taste. No matter, there are alternatives. I personally focus more on the light gray of the rest of the interior: interiors never look their best in this chilly shade, so I suspect I would have been more impressed if the interior had been just about any other color.

Accommodations

The Lexus LS has always had front seats well-suited to long distance comfort, and the LS 460's seats seem little different from those in the previous LS. The bi-level lumbar support and cushion length adjustment return, but the Germans continue to offer a larger number of adjustments (especially BMW). There's just a bit of lateral support, a clue that the basic character of the car remains much the same. As in the past, you won't find sport buckets on the options list.

The driving position also remains much the same, so it's about average for an imported luxury sedan. So you neither tower over the instrument panel or find yourself buried in the car. Room is not an issue in the front seat.

Despite this being the regular wheelbase car, neither is room an issue in back. Unless you're going to have unusually tall adults in front and in back, I see little functional justification for the extended wheelbase car. Even in the regular LS, my knees were nowhere near the front seatbacks. The rear seat continues to be comfortably shaped. Heat, ventilation, and power recline remain rear seat options.

Trunk volume is down ten percent from last year, a penalty of the less stolid styling, but this still puts it very close to competitors. The rear seat doesn't fold--typical for the class--but there is a small passthrough for skis and such.

Gadgets

Back in 2001, the big new gadget was adaptive cruise control. This time it's a $700 automated parking system. The car I drove lacked this option. While I've heard many people discussing this feature--it apparently has a broad appeal even for people who hardly ever have to parallel park--magazine tests have found it of little if any use. For one thing, it requires such a large parking space that, if you happened to find such a large space, it would be easy and quicker to just park the car without the system.

But wait, there's more. A $12,675 Executive Class Seating Package, available only on the extended length LS 460, includes a right rear passenger seat with a power leg rest, as seen in the $300,000+ Maybach, and massage function. Why just one side? Because to use the leg rest, the front passenger seat must be moved far forward, making it ususable for most adults. This might be a useful feature for those who employ a chauffeur and will be riding without a significant other in the back seat. Or, I suppose it could be useful for couples who switch off driving on frequent long trips. In most cases I suspect it'll be used about as often as the self-parking feature.

On the Road

For 2007, the LS' V8 has been bumped from 4.3 to 4.6 liters, and a combination of this larger displacement, direct injection (combined with conventional port injection), and a higher state of tune deliver 102 extra horsepower, for a total of 380 at 6,400 rpm. Mercedes' new 5.5-liter V8 kicks out just a couple more horses, and BMW's 4.8 falls twenty short, so this is fairly impressive.

The car's weight is also up about 250 pounds, to 4,245, but the power increase more than compensates. As before, but even more so, the LS has no trouble getting to whatever speed you desire with a minimum of fuss. An aggressive throttle ellicits justs the right quantity and quality of noise from the engine to make the experience pleasurable. This is something I've liked about every LS I've ever driven, the one concession the car has always made to drivers.

The power peak may be moderately lofty for an engine of this size, but the torque peak is a readily accessible 4,100. So you don't need to get near the redline to feel a solid shove in the lower back. This eight never feels soft.

Despite the large power increase and additional curb weight, the EPA ratings have improved to 19/27. This just shouldn't be possible.

Some credit is likely due to an obvious example of one-upmanship, the world's first eight-speed automatic. Why eight? Because a few years ago Mercedes came out with seven. Perhaps this many ratios has a place where speed limits are higher, but in the U.S. it comes down to bragging rights.

Because of the number of gears, I felt at least three shifts when gently accelerating from a stop to 35 or so miles-per-hour. I say "felt," because the shifts, while smooth, aren't quite imperceptible. I want to say that in Lexus past I've had to watch the tach to know when the transmission shifts. Around town, I noted no hunting around among ratios, and the transmission generally found the best ratio for the situation without undue delay. I've noted significant driveability issues with the Benz seven-speed. Supposedly this was due to that transmissions' learning process, but the Lexus LS 460's transmission does its learning much less obtrusively.

When I drove the then-new 2001 LS 430 I was disappointed by the softness and numbness of the car's steering and handling. It was far too hard to get a sense of the car's chassis and the relationship between the rubber and the road. Then, at a Taste of Lexus event, I drove the 2004 LS with the optional Sport Suspension, and found it far more satisfying, with a feel not far off that of the S-Class at the time.

Sadly, there is no such option with the new car. The optional air suspension includes a "sport" setting, but for reasons that escape me this suspension is only available on the extended wheelbase car. No matter, it's paired with the active variable ratio steering system I strongly disliked in the current GS 430.

But all is not lost. It turns out that the tuning of the standard suspension is closer to the previous car's Sport Suspension than to the old standard suspension. So, when hustling the car around turns I discovered that lean is reasonably well controlled and I could get a decent feel for what was going on. Steering feel is also not entirely absent. So, while still not a driver's car--in this class that would be the 7-Series, followed by the Jaguar and Mercedes--the new LS is not the floaty marshmallow the magazine reviews led me to expect. (The magazines also tend to like the handling of the Audi A8, but that sedan feels nose-heavy to me.) Perhaps they sampled the extended LS 460 with the optional funky steering...

The flip side of this tuning is that you hear and feel road imperfections a bit. Nothing jarring, but you're not entirely insulated, either. Owing to moderately firm damping, such imperfections are snubbed out quickly, with no lingering aftereffects. Noise levels are low even at highway speeds, as people have come to expect from the big Lexus sedan. While the new LS won't embarrass itself in the corners, its forte remains the long-haul highway cruise.

Lexus LS 460 Price Comparisons and Pricing

The LS was introduced back in the fall of 1989 with a base price of $35,000. But it didn't stay there for long. Just four years later the base price plus destination cracked $50,000. Since then the price has continued to increase, but at a much slower rate. The 2007 starts at $61,715. The car I drove had the "essential" options for this sort of car, including nav, a 19-speaker Mark Levinson sound system, front ventilated and rear heated seats, and front and rear obstacle detection. The total came to just under seventy. Can a $70,000 car be a great value?

Apparently so. Comparing the car I drove to a comparably equipped Mercedes-Benz S550 will find that the latter lists for about $88,000. Adjusting for feature differences yields a difference of about $15,000. Even the extended wheelbase Lexus, which I suppose is more comparable, checks in over $11,000 below the Mercedes before feature differences are accounted for, and over $13,000 below afterwards.

Compared to a BMW 750i, the Lexus is nearly $10,000 less before adjusting for feature differences, and about $9,000 less afterwards.

Prices change frequently, and differences will vary based on feature level. To quickly generate these and other comparisons with the specific features you want, visit my Web site, www.truedelta.com. (It's the only site that provides true "apples-to-apples" price comparisons.)

TrueDelta's page for the Lexus LS 460:

http://www.truedelta.com/models/LS460.php

Last Words

The new Lexus LS 460 didn't blow me away. My expectations in most areas from previous drives are probably too high for that. On the other hand, its steering and handling didn't disappoint me. While the big sedan would hardly be my choice for tackling a challenging mountain road, I'll grant that this simply isn't the cars mission in life. Instead, it's almost perfectly suited for the way the great majority of large luxury sedan drivers actually drive. If anything, many if not most owners will rarely if ever approach the car's performance capabilities.

Sure, more distinctive styling might be nice, and I remain puzzled by the pedestrian armrests. But that I'm even focusing on the latter demonstrates just how few faults this car has. Add in its continuing price and reliability advantages over the Europeans, and it's no wonder that Lexus LS 460s are leaving dealer lots at MSRP as quickly as they arrive.

A Note on Lexus LS 460 Reliability

I cannot practically cover reliability within the context of this review. However, many people are interested in such information, so I've started collecting my own data. Results, once they are available, will be posted to my site, www.truedelta.com, with updates every three months.

Unlike other sources, TrueDelta will clearly identify what difference it will make if you buy an LS 460 rather than another vehicle by providing "times in the shop" and "days in the shop" stats (among others). You will be able to specify the number of years, annual miles, and types of repairs to include in Lexus LS 460 reliability comparisons.

Before I can report results, I need reliability data on all cars--not just the Lexus LS--from people like you. To encourage participation, those who help provide the data will receive free access to the site's reliability information. Non-participants will have to pay an access fee.

For the details, and to sign up, visit www.truedelta.com.

A link to this website and alphabetized links to my other vehicle reviews can be found on my profile page.

Some of my reviews of related vehicles:
Audi A8 review
BMW 7-Series review
Cadillac STS review
Jaguar XJ8 review
Jaguar XJ8
Lexus GS review
Lexus LS 430 review
Mercedes S550 review