Category: Large Executive 
Price Range: £57,263 to £57,263
Superlative refinement, great new looks, limousine ride quality, it parks itself.
Really rather soulless, engine lacks low down grunt, grabby brakes.
Technocrats will love it, as will those who feel ride and refinement are the defining characteristics of the luxury car. It lacks only that critical sense of occasion.
On sale from January 2007, the LS460 is available in basic, SE and SE-L specification levels, priced £57,000, £65,000 and £71,000 respectively.
If ever there was a candidate for safest car on the road, this surely is it. While other manufacturers concentrate on getting lots of stars for crash test performance, Lexus has not only made sure the LS460 has all the secondary safety systems you could wish for, should you crash, it has also done more than anyone in history to make sure you don't have the accident in the first place.
The LS will steer itself to make sure you stay plumb in the middle of your motorway lane. It will scan the road ahead and, if it sees something you have not, it can slam on the brakes and prepare the steering and suspension for an emergency lane-change manoeuvre. Honda and Mercedes have systems that will do this too, but only if you're about to smack another metallic object, like a car. The Lexus can 'see' anything, including human beings.
More impressive still, it's even watching you, building up a mental image of your face night and day, so that if you happen to be asleep or looking out of the side window when danger presents itself, it will bleep, flash lights and even nudge the brakes until your attention has been restored.
It watches your tail too. If someone is about to come steaming into the boot, it will move the headrests forward and upwards to minimise whiplash.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Lexus LS 430
wrote on 11 10 2007
wrote on 05 09 2006
wrote on 30 06 2006