Price as tested: €72,950
+ Drivetrain, refinement, comfort, chassis balance, quality
– Silly grille, numb steering
= The best hybrid we’ve yet driven
Here’s a funny thing. Lexus can’t tell me how much torque the new GS450h has. Nerdy fact that it is, a healthy torque figure is deeply significant for driving both relaxed and invigorating. A lack of torque is inimical to fun and lots of it gives you that lovely, deep-down thumpy feeling as you accelerate hard out of a tight corner. It’s what makes American V8s so addictive and its absence is what makes small petrol engines such hard work. Normally you just look up the figure, either in Newton-Metres (Nm) or foot-pounds (lb-ft) in a car’s technical data list. And it’s not that the GS has no torque; quite the opposite. You can feel its presence every time you tap the throttle.
The thing is that the GS450h, a hybrid as was its predecessor and almost every other Lexus, draws its torque from two sources. A 3.5-litre V6 petrol with 352Nm and an electric motor with 275Nm. Add the two together and you get a fairly tyre-shredding 627Nm or about what you’d get from a 1970s Can Am racer...
It’s not that simple though, says Lexus and I seriously doubt that the GS ever gets the full combined 627Nm or the rear Bridgestones wouldn’t be long for this world. Instead, the fearsomely clever computer management system (which can presumably calculate lunar orbit trajectories and file your tax returns) juggles and apportions the power and torque outputs of the two motors until you have an essentially seamless whole.
Now, hybrids have been criticised in the past, and frequently on these pages, for not being up to snuff. The idea of backing up a downsized petrol engine with an electric motor seems entirely sensible and effective, but never in the past have we driven a hybrid that either lived up to its fuel economy claims or gave us much in the way of driving pleasure. (The Honda CR-Z gets a by here because it’s fun in spite of being a hybrid.) The old GS450h was fun enough in a straight-line, drags-strip kind of way, its combination of petrol and electric grunt sufficient to hurl it up the road in a most uneconomical fashion, but it felt a bit lead-footed in handling terms and its economy and emissions were soon out-classed by the new hordes of hyper-efficient diesels.
This GS then, has rather a lot to prove, both as a hybrid and as a car. Can a hybrid ever match or beat the latest diesels in economy and emissions terms? Can Lexus produce a truly convincing challenger to the likes of the BMW 5 Series?
Well, you certainly can’t accuse Lexus of keeping its light under a bushel this time around. The new GS, when seen from the back and side is crisply handsome and subtly muscular. And that new grille, with its chrome fangs? Well, I can certainly see what Lexus was trying to do – to inject both distinctiveness and aggression, but for my money it just doesn’t work. It look inelegant and a bit OTT. A shame.
There’s better news on the inside though, where the previous GS’s slight sense of clunkiness is banished by a very slick and stylish cabin, with beautifully simple, clear instruments, a big central screen for controlling the infotainment and HVAC systems and a distinctly inviting sense of comfort and style. The seats a big, comfy and supportive. The space in the rear seats is excellent. I love the way that, when you push the Sport button, the instruments switch from a charging metre to a red-lit rev counter.
Way out back, boot space has dramatically improved. In the last GS, the hybrid system’s batteries ate so deeply into the luggage room that you were left with a narrow slot that wouldn’t hold very much at all. Now, thanks to better packaging, there’s a decent (if not class leading) 482-litres. That’s better.
Slip behind the wheel and push the starter button and there’s the usual hybrid car silence as the batteries take the strain for the initial few metres. When the 3.5-litre 292bhp petrol V6 engine comes to life, you’ll struggle to notice it. The usual Lexus superlatives of refinement and noise suppression apply.
Where that V6 really makes itself felt and heard is when you accelerate hard. We’ve become so used, over the past few years, to big executive cars being exclusively diesel-powered, so the crisp, sharp-edged snarl of the GS’s engine as it passes 4,000rpm (the point at which most diesels just give up and go home) is as refreshing as lemon zest and just as tasty. Combined with the batteries and electric bits, it makes for a very satisfying drivetrain to use, probably the best hybrid we’ve ever tried. There never seems to be a gap in the power, or a step when one system or the other dominates. The CVT gearbox doesn’t seem to suffer from the same problems that afflict over continously variable ‘boxes, such as letting the engine needlessy blare its head off at high rpm when accelerating. And it’s decently economical too. Lexus claims 6.0-litres per 100km on the combined cycle, which you probably won’t get near, but we averaged mid-sevens and that’s about what you’d get out of a comparable 3.0-litre diesel. Impressive.
Impressive too that emissions have been kept down to a Band B-friendly 139g/km, so you can match a BMW 520d buyer for tax smugness while matching a 535d for performance. That’s quite a combination, and it’s nice to notice how often the car automatically kicks into EV mode, not just when cruising around town, but also on the open road. It makes you feel like it was worth going down the hybrid route, even if in reality, a constantly-running diesel is little less efficient.
Our F-Sport spec test car came with option four-wheel-steering, and eighties Japanese obsession that seems to be making something of a comeback. I can honestly say that, in spite of trying, I could never actually feel the rear wheels doing anything much, but there’s no doubting that the GS felt unusually agile and chuckable for such a big car. A shame that the steering is too remote and distant for you to truly enjoy punting it along, but there’s no doubt that a pretty terrific chassis dwells beneath; an achievement made even more impressive when you remember that the GS’s is still packing the extra weight of all those batteries. Impressive too that the ride quality is generally excellent, only occasionally feeling too firm and mostly just cosseting nicely.
At €72,950, the F-Sport’s rear-steer and sporty bodykit and wheels may seem a bit of an extravagance over the cost of a €59,950 Executive model, but there’s no doubt that for the first time, Lexus has really hit the 5 Series market dead-on. It won’t be to the tastes of the me-too hordes who will only ever buy German at this price level, but here at least is a hybrid that’s a frugal as it should be and as invigorating to drive as you’d hope. Here is a Lexus of true character and enjoyment, as well as the expected quality and refinement.
Lexus GS450h F-Sport
Price: €72,950
Range price: €59,950 to €76,250
Capacity: 3,456cc
Power: 345bhp
Torque: See text
Top speed: 250kmh
0-100kmh: 5.9sec
Economy: 6.0-100km (47.0mpg)
CO2 emissions: 139g/km
Tax Band: B. €225 road tax
Euro NCAP rating: Not yet tested
