CORNER EXIT

It’s time for the flagship Lexus LS500 to take the scenic route home

“YOU’RE TAKING AN LS500 on that road. Why are you doing that?” Given the person offering this candid guidance was an esteemed colleague, I probably should have heeded the advice. Also, considering the years of road testing experience I’ve also gained in Victoria’s Yarra Valley, listening to my gut feeling would have been a good idea. But I didn’t. And I ended up on a narrow and twisty road.

However, it wasn’t quite akin to hustling the MS Symphony of the Seas down the Yarra River. In fact, it was good fun. Which is heartening given dynamic prowess is the reason you’d choose the F Sport over the $5k more expensive Sports Luxury. While the former doesn’t gain the latter’s interior gadgets, it does add rear-wheel steering, active anti-roll bars and variable-gear-ratio steering upfront. The theory is that this isn’t the LS to be driven in, rather it’s the one you drive.

Okay, at 5235mm long, 1900mm wide and with a wheelbase of 3125mm it’s never going to be a twinkle-toed ballerina. However, the LS500 F Sport does display an impressive amount of agility. Roll is largely kept in check and on fast, flowing sections of tarmac it really finds its feet. While the rear-steer helps, its long wheelbase hampers rotation and on corner exit a lack of a limited-slip differential can see the inside rear spin – or it sends the traction control into a frenzy.