My new daily driver.
Shortly, this is the very car we considered for FG Roadtrip 16 with public and Lastsoul. This car belonged to friends of Dave and Arron (who might be joining the forum soon, perhaps?). They got it themselves just for roadtripping to Le Mans and alps last year. We preferred a Jag, and this Lexus was a backup plan back then. We thought about either renting it from the guys, or buying it directly. But in the end, we ended up buying a ?1000 Daimler for the roadtrip. Six months later, the Lexus is still unsold, I'm carless due to the sell of my E28, and there is an annual icetrack coming up, so I "ordered" the LS to be delivered here. The owners get another roadtrip out of it, I get a car, everyone wins
Cosmetically, it could use a lot of work, but nothing that requires painting. The chassis is ok too, the galvanized body seems to withstand even the British weather. The interior is mostly fine as well, with a couple superficial flaws.
Got a cool glass sunroof, which appears to have started leaking about 15 minutes after me and the sellers parted ways . Also the HVAC LCD screen is broken, which apparently can be expensive to fix. The ebay is full of $20-50 replacement screens from china, so I already ordered one Thankfully the suspension is conventional The exhaust is basically open in the middle, so the sound is... interesting. It will need welding before I can register the car in Finnish plates.
And of course, the cool gauge cluster ?
Now I have 4 vehicles in my posession (one of them shared), and none are left hand drive :lol: Comparison to Daimler is impossible to avoid. The cars were originally bought the same purpose, the price was exactly the same, both have 4 litre engines, same weight and power. The Daimler has fewer cylinders, but more torque. And yet the cars feel very different. Briefly, the LS feels a lot heavier, it's a proper tank. The controls are meatier and the car feels big, whereas Daimler hides its weight very well, shrinks up as you go faster. Performance figures are pretty much identical for both, Lexus maybe feels a bit faster. That could be due to the feeling of accelerating a medium sized house, accompanied by an unmuffled growl of the V8. Not that the Daimler is very quiet with its lack of rear silencers But it's hard to say now, I can't wait to compare them head to head on summer tyres. I would say the Lexus is more comfortable, certainly when traveling in the back. It's also quite soft, and has a lot of body roll, which made it feel weird throwing around the track. LS feels solid and thought out, but the Daimler feels far more special for a driver. It is no contest regarding which one I prefer. But then, the Daimler is also a lot more expensive on practice. It needs welding, it needs new body panels and needs painting. As a ?1000 roatrip car it was great, but long term it will be easily a 5000 eur purchase. The Lexus is ready to serve as it is, and it's a whole lot of car for the money.
Proof pic coming this evening.
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