The Lexus Canada's IS350 RWD, F-Sport is standard. The features on this car does have a subset of luxury features seen on a luxury package. Overall it does have more features than the US car.

As per getting AWD over RWD, I would stick with RWD because you want to have the sporty feel which AWD would lack. If one has proper tires on RWD you can drive just fine in the snow, plus you won't get an MPG hit for AWD. Even thou the ML is not present on the RWD, it is not enough to justify going for AWD for that and losing out on the freedom of what RWD has to offer.

Lexus Canada did used to allow special order but no longer does that. If they did, then one can order ML. This where US would have advantage of special ordering and would be able to put that in; but then again there are some features which US cannot get which Canada has such as the front windshield deicer.

 

I bought a 2011 IS350 new in December 2011. While I got a great savings for end of model year, I should have bought a used one for $10k less.

As for features, I am glad I got the F-sport exhaust. I WISH I would have gotten the Mark Levinson radio, With the windows down, I can not really hear the radio at 40+ mph.

Good luck and let us know what you decide (we need pics).

 

i'd have trouble paying almost 50k for a car that will have a style change shortly after you buy it. I would encourage used 350's or an isf at that point.

I loved mine when I had it but was happy to see it go, I only had it for 10 months and put 18k miles on it, I didn't have any complaints except for possibly size and wanting a V8.

 

Thanks for all the commentary... I will have a proper test drive and let you know my overall impressions. To be very honest, I have a dual clutch flappy paddle car right now and I simply don't have the time to go to the track; 95% of the time I use the standard D mode and it's great... the 5% of the time I go into manu-matic mode I forget about it because it's usually on a straight stretch of highway or on the on ramp So, I'm grappling a bit with myself as I have always equated leaving a manual car with giving up on life; but then I moved to an auto manual car because my wife doesn't know how to and doesn't have the will to learn how to drive a proper manual; so, if the Lexus transmission logic is to my satisfaction, I don't have a problem sticking with an auto box. And, as far as the IS-F, I will definitely take a look but if I'm going to spend that kind of money I would get my wife an SUV or wagon or something like that and move back to a proper two seater manual...

 

Bear in mind, the new style might suck

Plus, if you like the current style, it's not like it stops looking like something you liked because the next-gen version is out.