Why is a moped like a fat girl? Give up? They're both kinda fun to ride until one of your friends sees you.

Do you like that joke?

Oh. Bad taste.

Yeah, I guess you're right.

Maybe I should change "moped" to "Lexus SC430".

Better? I thought so too...

The Lexus might carry a high price tag, but that doesn't guarantee sophistication, and believe me, you won't get any with this car. The Lexus is a car with all the style and elegance of a West Virginia double-wide mobile home, but without the spaciousness. Let's talk more about this since there are really only two things people want in a 2-door sports coupe: styling and performance.

Styling
Let's not mince words here: the Lexus SC 430 is -- beyond question -- the butt-ugliest car to cross pavement since the 1975 AMC Pacer (which you may recall seeing in the poignant cinematic masterpiece, Waynes World).

Hmm. Wait a sec. Come to think of it, that Pacer was actually more attractive than the Lexus (it certainly had a sleeker back end), so I'll have to think back even further. Hmmm. Hmmm. Well, come to think of it, I guess there has never been a car as ugly as the Lexus SC 430! Nope, not even old Citroens.

I know, I know. People talk about the "head turning potential" of this car, and I will readily admit that it is an unusual look. Unusual can turn heads in a bad way. I sincerely doubt that even Cindy Crawford naked would turn as many heads as an oozing mutant alien from planet Jabbah (those things bear an uncanny resemblance to Rush Limbaugh naked -- eeeewwww!).

Yes, the SC 430 is "different", but attractive, NO WAY!

To understand what I really mean, let's compare this car with a vehicle that looks like somebody with a modicum of design sense was behind the scenes: the BMW Z3 (or the Z8 for that matter). On the BMW, the predominant design feature is the llloooonnnggg sleek front hood. That hood conveys a message. The message is "this car is a rocket with a seat and it takes one huge honking engine compartment to house this power plant." The car looks sleek. It looks sexy. It looks refined. It looks engineered. The BMW looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger on steroids.

On the other hand, the Lexus SC 430 has a HUGE back end. What does that say? In people, it says "I sit on my fat butt all day eating Twinkies and Ho-Hos". In cars, it says "Waynes World, Waynes World, Party Time, Excellent!" The Lexus looks fat. It looks slow. It looks like something with the road-handling performance of a Peterbilt. It looks goofy. It looks like Rosanne on pork loins.

Performance
I've read a few reviews that spout performance numbers on this car that make it seem like it should be a real track star. I wonder if those reviewers actually drove the car. When I took the SC 430 out for a ride I kept thinking of those old Wendy's commercials with the old lady hollering "Where's the Beef??!" That kind of sentiment sums up my opinion of the SC 430's performance.

I can read Lexus brochures and web pages just as well as anyone else, and I'm fully aware that their marketing mavens claim the SC 430's 8 cylinder engine can accelerate to 60 miles per hour in 5.9 seconds. I think they must have been using a catapult from the U.S.S. Enterprise to help it along... I didn't time it precisely, but when I tried accelerating the car to highway speed on the on-ramps for Interstate 10, it seemed sluggish to me and slower to respond than cars with 6 cylinder engines -- heck, it seemed slower to me than a BMW 325, never mind the 330 or the Z3.

Part of my perception could be that most of the cars I've been driving lately have felt very smooth and precise, while this one felt rough and unrefined. Whereas a BMW feels firm, precise, competent and silky, the ride is almost always rock-solid level and smooth. That's sure not the feeling you get with the Lexus! The Lexus may very well be able to corner quickly and stop on a dime, as Lexus claims, but the car felt like it had no suspension whatsoever -- do you remember when you were a kid and you rode down hills in those red steel toy wagons? That's exactly how the ride feels in the Lexus SC 430!

I might have exaggerated a little about the ugliness factor, but believe you me, I am not stretching the point even a millimeter when it comes to the quality of the ride. Prove it for yourself! If you test-drive the Lexus SC 430, make sure you take a route that crosses some train tracks. I guarantee you, you haven't felt that jerked around since your high school sweetheart dumped you...

Stuff Car Enthusiasts Don't Care About...
As I said, styling and performance are really the only two things people who buy cars like the Lexus SC 430 care about, but the rest of the car driving world might care about other things too. Like interior design and spaciousness.

Let's talk spaciousness, which is a non-existent concept with the SC 430.

You'd think that with such a hugely fat back end you should be able to carry enough kegs of beer to serve everyone at the Indy 500. In reality, you'd be hard pressed to carry enough beer home to slake the thirst of a single devout Mormon.

The problem is the retractable roof. All that back end space is used up to slide the roof down. Sure you've got the dinky little upholstered niche behind the driver's seat -- the one that looks like it was taken out of one of those plastic Barbie Jeeps they sell at Toys Backwards-"R" Us -- but that dinky little space is only good for a couple 12-packs.

Don't get me wrong. There are people for whom the Lexus SC 430 is probably a good choice. It's the perfect car for lonely 50-year divorced men with bad eyesight and worse taste, whose Rogaine treatments aren't working as well as they were supposed to, and who normally go to bowling alleys to meet women. Hmm. That could be a potentially enormous market...

Lexus should sell a million of these cars in the U.S.!

Bottom Line
Save your money -- all $60K plus.

You can buy more luxurious and better performing cars at half the price of the SC 430. You can buy more attractive cars at one-third the price. Heck, if it's really ugly cars you're after, you could even buy a 1975 AMC Pacer for one-sixtieth the price. What a deal!

Til next time, see ya on the road. I'll be in the back seat of the Pacer bouncing around to the sounds of Bohemian Rhapsody. Party on, Dude!




Amount Paid (US$): 61000
Condition: New
Model Year: 2002