We had the new Lexus LC500 Convertible on test recently, and very nice it was too (more to follow on that soon). If I’m honest, though, a Lexus convertible is still a bit Partridge-wins-the-pools for me. Which is good, really, because penny-pinching journalists are not the target market. Problem is that rousing V8 tends to live rather long in the memory…
Having been rather partial to the RC F Track Pack we tested alongside a Mustang last year, that was my first port of call for another Lexus V8 fix. But with ‘Lexus’ and ‘V8’ ticked in the classifieds, in between a couple of SC430s I’d rather forget, was this: a GS F. Remember those?
With the same storming 5.0-litre as the LC, the four-door GS was certainly fast enough - if not as brain-rattlingly so as the German opposition. But with a sweet soundtrack, decent handling, smart styling and that famed Lexus quality, it was an interesting left-field alternative. This one looks an absolute steal: four years old and with only 20k on the clock, it has a full Lexus service history and just two owners. For a little more than £35k, which is half its new price. Or about a third that of the LC - I can live without the drop-top glamour.
NC
I saw a Lamborghini Murcielago on the A40 the other day. Which, with the weather as it’s been and approaching November, seemed like quite the spot. It wasn’t anywhere exotic, and it presumably wasn’t going to to a fancy location, either; it was just a Lamborghini being driven on the public road, running errands as we all have to do in our cars. And it still looked brilliant doing it.
Sure, the lights were dim against modern LEDs, and wheels that once seemed enormous looked quite dainty, but the supercar drama is plainly in abundance. Drivers stopped, pedestrians gawped - it’s definitely still that sort of car. And that’s why there’s one here; I’ve been able to think about precious little else all week.
Any Murcielago would be do for me, even a Versace Edition, but right hand drive SVs are rare enough that this has to feature. Originally sold in Singapore, this Bianco Isis car came to the UK in 2015 yet is still showing less than 6,500 miles. At £300k it’s the least expensive SV currently on PH (one of them has to be!) and about the same price as the latest breed of lightweighted supercars. It’d be a tough call...
MB
I know I'm not the only one nursing a desire to own a WRC homologation special. And I mean one that goes far beyond the present-day homologation regs, which only require the body to be shared with a road car. I’m talking about the nineties stuff, like the Escort RS Cosworth, which was especially close to Ford’s rally machine in its earliest homologation production run.
The first 2,500 of Ford’s total 7,145 roadgoing Escort Cossies got bigger turbos, and they had a water injection system under the rear passenger seat as a non-functioning feature that was purely there to allow its use in the rally machine. How cool is that? Admittedly, they weren’t any quicker than the subsequent RS models thanks to being de-tuned for the road, although with 227hp from Cosworth’s YBT turbocharged four-cylinder and the same whale-tail-dominated aerodynamics, nobody was complaining.
But the first cars have always been the most exciting to come from Ford’s Group A Escort pile. They’re as close as you can get to driving the actual WRC car that Ford fielded between 1993 and 1999, after all, and their success kick-started a formula that ensured the production of the following Focus RS models. Honestly, if I had £52k, there are few other options from the automotive world that could make me gawk as much as this pristine Escort RS, which, I reckon, is crying out to be splashed with winter grime in 2020.
SS
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