Feb 15, 2008
2007 Lexus LS 460 L: This is big!
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In these tough economic times, even the very rich are evaluating their spending habits with more than the usual care. Just recently, we read of a Las Vegas business executive who cut her clothing budget from $3,000 per month to just $500.
So where does a $72,000 passenger car fit into the average tycoon’s budget? Well, if it’s a Lexus LS 460 L, it fits quite well. Not only is this Lexus tweaked and tested to a fault, but it’s engineered to cure carbon-footprint guilt. Its ultra-low-emissions 380-horsepower V-8 engine and eight-speed automatic transmission deliver a surprising 24 mpg on the highway.
Make no mistake, this Lexus is big: 17 feet long, more than 6 feet wide and 4,332 pounds. Driving a car of such extraordinary dimensions and quality reacquaints you with the sense of being at the top of the food chain.
Our 2007 LS 460 L — that’s the extended-body version with a limousine-like back seat — started at $71,000. The 2008 model, little changed from 2007, starts $1,000 higher. To call this car loaded with standard equipment would be an understatement, but Lexus managed to add a few thousand dollars worth of optional goodies that brought the sticker price to almost $81,000.
“So you drive an $81,000 car,” Shania Twain might have sung. “That don’t impress me much.” Well, it sure impressed us. Usually, when we find ourselves at the wheel of a car with a crazy-high price, we start finding tiny flaws just so we can say “Aha! Last week we drove a car that had a quarter inch of front legroom more and cost less than half as much.” But we couldn’t find anything not to like about this car. Oh, we could go on about conspicuous consumption, but the LS 460 L justifies itself by its own perfection.
It would be another understatement to mention Lexus really, really thought this model through. Here’s a quick example from the company’s press package: “The interior cabin of the LS demanded not only exceptional silence, but the quality of the sounds had to be pleasing … . For example, engineers tuned the sound of the doors opening and closing by studying the sounds of skillfully crafted wood doors in luxury homes.” Believe it.
The LS series — it includes a regular-length version that starts at $62,000 and the $104,000 LS 600 L — earned the highest possible crash-test scores from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and much-better-than-average reliability ratings from Consumer Reports magazine. No surprise there.
Critics who have subjected the LS 460 to more rigorous testing than we did claim it’s less agile than its European competitors on twisting roads, and the state-of-the-art Advanced Parking Guidance System (a $700 option), which parallel-parks the Lexus, works at its own leisurely pace. But we were drawn to this car nonetheless, despite the fact (or perhaps because) it’s unattainable for most.
Steven Macoy (smacoy3070@cs.com) is a longtime car enthusiast and full-time editor who lives in Bethel, Conn.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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