Lexus LS 460 (2007-) Review

Overview

• Next: Reliability and Quality

It doesn't seem like 16 years since Lexus changed the way the world thought about luxury cars.

Until then luxury meant a high-falutin European brand, a Rolls if you could afford it, or a Merc if you couldn't. Luxury was defined as much in terms of wood and leather as it was ride and refinement.

And then the LS400 appeared, whisper quiet and smooth as a crown green bowls lawn, and things were never the same again. Indeed all that stopped it ripping the heart out of the European luxury car market as surely as it did in the US was the fact that we're a continent of badge snobs and could not countenance abandoning our Mercedes, BMWs and Audis for what we knew, at its heart, was a Toyota in a dinner jacket.

But this LS460, the all-new third generation of Lexus limo, is out to change all that and you'll know without reading another word that in one critical regard at least it has an appeal neither of its predecessors could claim: it looks right. While the LS400 was visually a rather dull imitation of an S-Class Mercedes and the LS430 one of the most startlingly ugly luxury cars ever conceived, the LS460 uses the same 'L-finesse' design language that makes its IS and GS little sisters so attractive and distinctive - and is all the better for it. Its lines flow, its proportions are near perfect and its detailing nicely resolved.

Behind those attractive lines lies probably the most technically sophisticated car ever to come to market. No car can drive itself but, as we will find out, sometimes the Lexus makes you wonder. There will be just one engine at launch in the New Year, an all new 4.6-litre V8, although a more expensive hybrid dubbed the LS600h will come along in the summer, available with a long or regular wheelbase.