Lexus IS F Greensboro NC

Why the letter "F" in the new V-8-powered, 416-horsepower Lexus IS F? Simple: Toyota's luxury brand and the letter F have a long history. In the mid-1980s, the Lexus luxury division was then just a classified notepad document codenamed "Circle F." The first Lexus LS400 of 1989 was known internally as the "F1" or "Flagship." And the stylized Fs on the 2008 IS F are drawn, it's said, to mimic a few hairpin turns of Toyota's Higashi-Fuji test track.

This first F (there'll be more Lexus models with the F treatment soon, most likely) is a V-8-powered sledgehammer that rockets to 60 mph in 4.2 seconds—fleeter by 0.1 second than the new M3—has a 172-mph speed governor, and generates 0.92 g on the skidpad. It also keeps us grinning through hard track laps, even though the frequent fill-ups of premium were inhaled by street driving at the rate of 16 mpg. We'll have to wait until March, 2008, when the IS F goes on sale at an expected price around $59,000 to see how many buyers are interested in a wicked-performing Lexus.

Developed in cooperation with Yamaha, the IS F's engine, or the 2UR-GSE as Toyota calls the 416-hp variant of the 389-hp 5.0-liter V-8 found in the LS600h hybrid, sans hybrid gear, is peakier, actually losing 17 pound-feet of torque on the operating table as the changes pushed the horsepower and torque peak higher up the revs. Solid lifters and titanium intake valves with 10 percent more lift reside in new higher-flow cylinder heads. At full throttle above 3400 rpm, a barn door in the box snaps open with vacuum released from a small reservoir, and the unleashed induction noise is raw and thrilling.

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