OK, so there’s the guy who already owned a large Lexus saloon and has now traded it in for an RX300 along with one of the few copies for this year of the new SC430 coupe cabriolet. That’s practical and fun both getting their share.
And there’s the member of the phenomenally successful pop group who wants a bit of special style on the few months of the year that's he's not touring.
Such are a couple of particular buyers, but in general who are the people who have managed to get SC430s promised for delivery this year? ‘Quietly rich’ people, I’m told. Rich I can understand, because they’re paying £84,000 a steering wheel. ‘Quietly’ might be more difficult to maintain, since the rarity value of this hardtop sports cabriolet from Lexus will shout ‘I’ve got the bucks’ even louder than the Mark Levinson sound system on board could do.
(In the US, people pay up to $40,000 for a home sound system made by him. And this is the first one he’s designed for a car.)
But I suppose there are degrees of ‘quiet’ in being rich. Just as there are in the interior furnishing schemes of this undeniably gorgeous-looking car. White leather and bright bird’s-eye maple is a little brash to my eyes. Between it and the very sexy black leathered number with walnut is a rather rich ‘saddle’ cowskin version. Surrounded by a champagne metal shell, it was the one we got to drive at the Irish press launch.
Suitably, the venue was Ireland’s ‘Cote D’Azur’, otherwise Dublin’s Dalkey/Killiney elegantly walled twisty residential roads with a summer view of Greater Dublin Bay. And with the top down, eminently perfect for posing. Which we unashamedly did.
And it brought out the best and the worst in other people. The best was the big grin and the salute from the lorry driver for whom we made way as he tried to negotiate those same narrow twists, the worst from the jealous young pup in the blue Micra who blasted us as I was momentarily indecisive about entering a roundabout.
A Micra horn seems terribly bigger than its owner when one has no roof or windows to mute the sound. Unfortunately, this particular SC430 did not come with the rear-facing missiles option a certain Mr Bond requires.
Otherwise it was a pleasant perambulation. And that’s a thing I’ve found over the years - a big V8 and smooth autotrans rarely makes one push for power and speed, rather it encourages more laid-back motoring. A case of knowing one has the power if needed. Unlike yon Micra-mite, who probably needed sound and fury to imagine he was potent.
No sound and fury in this car, though. The engine, tweaked for this application from that in the most recent of the Lexus 400-series cars, is literally a whisperer. When not being Micra-blasted, the only sound above the on-board music is the slightly coarse swish of the big 18” low-profile tyres. A very marginal coarse, mind you, and probably because they’re run-flat rubbers which may not have the ride smoothness of ordinary covers but do obviate the need for a spare.
Don’t be fooled by the easy-loping ability, though. When asked, the SC430 can deliver a 0-62mph sprint in 6.4 seconds. Without any additional fury and only a marginal increase in sound. We managed to get a feel for this when we floated it onto the M11 and gave it a run as far as the Bray turnoff. At the legal limit, it was still pretty noiseless, thanks in part to how well the computer-aided calculations worked out windflow and metalshaping. And there’s something quite special about the sound of 70mph motoring in an opentop.
On the home run, things had clouded over and a spatter of rain on the screen suggested we try out the hard-top roof. It is a very complex design, but works as simply as pressing a button on the dash and holding it in until all is done in 25 seconds. No fiddling with catches, or preparing windows in a special position. And once up, you have a proper coupe. Again without compromises in headlining or anything else. Two cars in one, truly.
There’s a lot of good engineering put into this SC430, from really serious attempts to eliminate the scuttle-shake which bedevils most opentops to the way the climate control adjusts itself to whether the roof is open or shut. As also does the sound system, by the way.
And anyone who has read a Lexus review in the last couple of years will know about the work involved in producing the ‘intelligent’ autoshift mechanism, which has a computer that not only smoothes out the shift points, but automatically senses the position of the car and decides which gear it should be in while going downhill.
There simply wasn’t opportunity to try out the suspension under pressure on the launch day, both because of the short time in the car and the knowledge that it was the only one registered and if we’d done any damage (we were first out), the two-day launch programme was a goner. In specification terms, the underpinnings are based on the GS series but tuned for the specific dynamics of the lower and squatter sports car. And the designers say it makes the most of the very stiff platform.
We’ll get a chance later to gain some more appreciation of it. Meantime, as a Lexus we can expect that the SC430 would have every electronic handling and safety assistance possible, and it has. Though many features which might have been exclusive to Lexus-class cars a relatively few years ago are now available on many mass-market models. It makes it hard for a supercar to be claiming more than its lesser cousins.
So ABS, EBD, TC and BA (work them out ... you ARE readers of motoring magazines, after all) are something which we can get on everything from Corsas to Formula 1 Ferraris. Vehicle Stability Control (VSC) might still be only in cars in this class (maybe it depends on what you call it) but it is a ‘supervisor’ entity which uses ABS and TC to deal with adverse driving situations to correct oversteer or understeer.
And dual and side airbags, even with impact-level operation, are not exclusive to exclusive cars (and ‘curtain’ head protection systems are not possible in a cabriolet, even for Lexus), but we can take it that every possible attention has been given to the excellence of both active and passive safety systems in the SC430.
In the non-safety area, the ‘automatic on’ lighting sensor only recently a solus Lexus feature can now be had on Peugeots and Citroens as we write (and probably a few more cars I haven’t noticed yet). Much of this kind of thing is thanks to the multiplexing wiring and control systems now commonplace because they are cheaper and more efficient than the complicated wiring looms they have replaced.
But let’s concentrate on a few other aspects of the SC430. Such as the engine. A V8 with variable valve timing (VVVT-i) as in the most modern of parent Toyota engines, with 286bhp and a torque which would pull a truck to smoking wheels. The fuel consumption combines out to around 23mpg (it can drop to 16mpg around town), but not at top speeds of 156mph.
‘Luxuries’ include electrically-operated seats (front only, but the rear ones can only be used to throw the shopping onto or by children when the parents are shorter people), cruise control, tyre pressure monitoring system, and an electrochromic rear view mirror which automatically darkens when following lights hit it.
Like I said, much which can be had on lots of cars much less expensive. So why look to own an SC430 at £84,000?
Because it’s a Lexus.
July 2001
by Brian Byrne