Our Lexus IS 300C has now gone back to the dealer, having spent two months with us. While we still contend that it is not the kind of car that car guys like us would buy, it is still an excellent car in its own right, and we enjoyed driving it. At times, we had up to six cars on our fleet to pick from when heading out to events, and we’d pick the Lexus because it was the luxury car of the bunch.
The Lexus IS sedan first debuted in its current iteration back in 2006, and has changed little since then. So when the Lexus IS 300C convertible debuted for 2010, it got saddled with tech that was already half-a-decade old. That’s not to say it is bad in any way. In fact, we prefer it more than the new gimmicky gadgets in newly-designed luxury cars.
If you recall, we first drove this Lexus IS 300C back when it was fresh off-the-boat, with only 20 km on the clock. We used it during that last Eid-Al-Adha to haul recently-alive fresh beef, but we were hesitant to push it too hard, considering it was not even broken in. So when we got it back again now, as a long-termer, with a four-figure number on the odometer, we were in a good position to compare its straight-line performance, before and after.
For someone who’s not overly enthusiastic about cars, the Lexus IS 300C surely came as a surprise to me, something worthy of making a few good comments about. Looking from the exterior, personally, any 4-door sedan as I see it, is a ‘family car’ to me. This is what I thought of the Lexus IS 300C too as I got a first glimpse of it from our balcony. I later noticed it had only two doors.
No matter what one might say about the exterior of our Lexus IS 300C, you can be sure that we’d never give up this car as the one to pick for our daily routine. Because, you see, that interior, it is an awesome place to be in.
In the first week we had our 2012 Lexus IS 300C long-termer, we reset the trip computer to measure fuel economy while the car is in our hands, and not as an average carrying on from previous drivers. But just to test the accuracy of the trip computer, we decided to do some manual calculations as well.
When you’re asking people for their opinions on a car they do not own, you have to keep in mind that there are three kinds of people you are likely to encounter. First, there would be the car enthusiasts, who prefer cars with a sporting edge to them, and actually own cars with a sporting edge, such as a Dodge Charger or a Honda S2000. Second are the kind of people who you’d find on the street, who spend more time on sports and news websites than on car websites, and they drive regular cars such as a Toyota Prado or a Honda Civic.
You might remember this car. It is the white 2012 Lexus IS 300 C convertible we picked up for testing last year on Eid Al-Adha. Back then it only had 20 km on the clock. Now it has 4640 km, properly run in, and it is our new long-termer for the next two months.