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| Road Test Lexus LS600h L |
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My Kind Of Car
Regular readers will know that I tested an LS460 a while ago and wasn't enormously impressed by it. That car's bigger brother is superior in almost every way. It's faster, it's more comfortable, and it even has significantly better fuel economy. It's also staggeringly more expensive, but I suppose you can't have everything. Under the bonnet (and hidden under a plastic cover as if to suggest that Lexus clients ought not to be troubled by such things) lies a five-litre V8 petrol engine. That's one of the power units, the other being an electric motor which sometimes helps the engine along and sometimes replaces it altogether. Their combined effect is to provide a maximum of 439bhp, which is rather a lot; you have to press a special button on a BMW M5 to make it produce more than that. Straightline performance is quite something. Floor the throttle and this very large machine hurtles towards the horizon in a very surprising manner - 0-62mph in 6.3 seconds doesn't tell you everything, but it should give you a good idea of just how quick this thing is. Even more surprising is the combined fuel economy, which is just on the angels' side of 30mpg, or the same as a Ford Focus ST. This means that the LS600h is a lot cheaper to run that it looks like it should be, and with CO2 emissions of 219g/km it's relatively cheap to tax as well.
This is all thanks to the hybrid powertrain, of course, but it occurs to me that saving a few hundred quid a year on tax and fuel bills, appealing as this undoubtedly is, can't be the main reason for buying the car. I mean, the "basic" LS600h costs £81,410, the long-wheelbase one costs £83,655, and if you want the long-wheelbase model with the optional Rear Seat Relaxation Pack as tested here (and believe me you do, as I'll explain later), you're going to have to write a cheque for no less than £88,000. If you can afford that, why would you devote any consideration to the fact that it's a hybrid? |
