The LEXUS SC430 IS RUBBISH !!!
12-07-01, 04:42 AM
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Writers Opinion: The LEXUS SC430 IS RUBBISH !!!
Before I get too much hate mail, this was the opinion of British newspaper motor colomnist Jeremy Clarkson in 07/12/01 "The Sun" (www.thesun.co.uk)...
"The year is nearly over and I thought my annual wooden spoon would be going to Peugeot's awful 607.
But galloping in at the last minute has come the new Lexus SC, a two door £50,000 convertible to take on the Mercedes SL and Jaguar XK8. It doesn't. As comfortable as root canal work and as ugly as Robin Cook (UK Govt Foreign Minister), it is exactly like a normal car except it has no suspension at all.
I'd sooner go to work on an ox"
Would any of you care to comment, I can't because I haven't even been inside one, but think the car looks fantastic and if it is only half as good as my LS400 it must be superb!
Love to hear your views tho'.
All the best.
Lightyear.
"The year is nearly over and I thought my annual wooden spoon would be going to Peugeot's awful 607.
But galloping in at the last minute has come the new Lexus SC, a two door £50,000 convertible to take on the Mercedes SL and Jaguar XK8. It doesn't. As comfortable as root canal work and as ugly as Robin Cook (UK Govt Foreign Minister), it is exactly like a normal car except it has no suspension at all.
I'd sooner go to work on an ox"
Would any of you care to comment, I can't because I haven't even been inside one, but think the car looks fantastic and if it is only half as good as my LS400 it must be superb!
Love to hear your views tho'.
All the best.
Lightyear.
Last edited by genearch; 12-08-01 at 06:09 AM.
12-07-01, 05:41 AM
#2
Lexus Test Driver
this guy lost his head writing this. The SC430 features some very high tech wind induction system. If you drive the SC430 with the top down and windows rolled up, at around 75 miles it is still very very quiet. Look is subjective, so i guess it isn't that journest cup of tea.
12-08-01, 12:05 AM
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Sounds like a personal problem to me. Maybe he's too ugly for the car. Maybe the guy actually had work on his root canal before his evaluation of the SC 
Any way, the man didn't give any indisputable reasons for his hatred. Colorful phrases like "as ugly as Robin Cook" will surely help his career as a writer, but it won't help his credibility.
Given the audience he's trying to target, I think it's fair to say, "Jeremy Clarkson, you suck!"
Any way, the man didn't give any indisputable reasons for his hatred. Colorful phrases like "as ugly as Robin Cook" will surely help his career as a writer, but it won't help his credibility.
Given the audience he's trying to target, I think it's fair to say, "Jeremy Clarkson, you suck!"
12-09-01, 12:11 AM
#7
"NOT THE SHARPEST PENCIL IN THE BOX...................."
This guy's not the sharpest pencil in the box, and seems to be one of those "Religious Right" kind of blokes...........he was later heard to remark that he was convinced, from his own studies and further research on the matter that, "Joan Of Arc" was actually "Noah's Wife"!
If you explore his Web Site further, you can readily come to the conclusion that its pretty much another "National Inquirer Wannabe", with a lot of Topless soft **** and 900 numbers that will show up on your monthly Phone Bill for $4.99 per minute! :eek:
Today I put 4 solid hours on back Roads that, while they were actually State Highways in Indiana and Ohio, featured a lot of Twists and Turns for more than 200 miles, to get from Indy to Columbus, Ohio. Keeping it at 55 - 60 mph was pretty brutal, but I'm committed to breaking this New SC 430 in pretty much as the Owner's Manual suggests (55 mph for the first 1,000 miles). It runs like a dream, and has so much more available Power for instant Lane changes or Passing on a short stretch of Two Lane Highway, than my former 2001 (225 HP) BMW 330 Convertible. The High Build Quality, the taut but comfortable Suspension, the smooth as Silk Drivetrain, and warm, cozy Interior with those special "Buttery-Soft" Leather Seats that smell more like Connally Leather, than an XK8 really does, make the XK8 and SL 500 seem a bit wanting for their extremely high price, when compared feature to feature to our SC 430.
I've noticed one problem though with the Mark Levinson Stereo............when you turn up the "Best of the Eagles" CD, the car seems to silently but immediately increase in speed from 60 to 80 mph without any notice, untill you happen to glance down at the Speedometer, or out the Rear View Mirror at the oncoming Crown Vic with the "Flashing Blue & Reds"!
Tomorrow I'll leave Columbus on the South Eastern Leg of I-270, and by the time I head West on I-70 and pass Springfield, Ohio, the car should have it's first 1,000 miles on it. Thereafter, fitted with the New "Phantom II Radar Alert / Scrambler", we'll see how she handles between 100 & 156 mph on I-70, with the Top Up for the first run.
Details at 11:00.......................................
If you explore his Web Site further, you can readily come to the conclusion that its pretty much another "National Inquirer Wannabe", with a lot of Topless soft **** and 900 numbers that will show up on your monthly Phone Bill for $4.99 per minute! :eek:
Today I put 4 solid hours on back Roads that, while they were actually State Highways in Indiana and Ohio, featured a lot of Twists and Turns for more than 200 miles, to get from Indy to Columbus, Ohio. Keeping it at 55 - 60 mph was pretty brutal, but I'm committed to breaking this New SC 430 in pretty much as the Owner's Manual suggests (55 mph for the first 1,000 miles). It runs like a dream, and has so much more available Power for instant Lane changes or Passing on a short stretch of Two Lane Highway, than my former 2001 (225 HP) BMW 330 Convertible. The High Build Quality, the taut but comfortable Suspension, the smooth as Silk Drivetrain, and warm, cozy Interior with those special "Buttery-Soft" Leather Seats that smell more like Connally Leather, than an XK8 really does, make the XK8 and SL 500 seem a bit wanting for their extremely high price, when compared feature to feature to our SC 430.
I've noticed one problem though with the Mark Levinson Stereo............when you turn up the "Best of the Eagles" CD, the car seems to silently but immediately increase in speed from 60 to 80 mph without any notice, untill you happen to glance down at the Speedometer, or out the Rear View Mirror at the oncoming Crown Vic with the "Flashing Blue & Reds"!
Tomorrow I'll leave Columbus on the South Eastern Leg of I-270, and by the time I head West on I-70 and pass Springfield, Ohio, the car should have it's first 1,000 miles on it. Thereafter, fitted with the New "Phantom II Radar Alert / Scrambler", we'll see how she handles between 100 & 156 mph on I-70, with the Top Up for the first run.
Details at 11:00.......................................
Last edited by WJSOLOMON; 12-09-01 at 08:37 AM.
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12-09-01, 07:09 AM
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he was later heard to remark that he was convinced, from his own studies and furtherresearch on the matter that, "Joan Of Arc" was actually "Noah's Wife"!
12-10-01, 08:26 PM
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Originally posted by Helix
One word:
Jaguar.
Nuff Said about the British and their taste in cars.
One word:
Jaguar.
Nuff Said about the British and their taste in cars.
12-12-01, 01:31 PM
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Jeremy's latest review of the SC430
From last weekend's Sunday Times:
SUNDAY DECEMBER 09 2001
Jeremy Clarkson: This ugly, clunky Lexus is only any good if you’re on a diet
GOOD news for fat people. You can now attach your body to a new kind of portable machine that vibrates and turns all your blubber into muscle. It’s called the Lexus SC — the Slendertone Coupé.
You climb aboard in Oxford, a shorty 40-year-old with what looks like a Lilo stuffed down the front of your shirt, and you emerge in Manchester with a torso the shape of Dairylea cheese, a back like a sack of pythons and buttocks like a pair of ostrich eggs.
And this is rather more than a slimming gadget because the Lexus SC 430, with its silk ’n’ cream 4.3 litre V8 engine, can also be used as a car. Twitch your right foot and you go from 0 to 60 in 6sec on your way to an electronically limited top speed of 155mph.
Furthermore, as the miles and the pounds peel away, you can listen to the utterly fabulous Mark Levinson stereo system and revel in a gearbox that adjusts itself to suit the driver’s style.
But — and this is the biggest, most rounded “but” you will read all week — sitting in this car is like sitting on a trotting horse.
It’s odd. Lexus has built a reputation for making cars that glide from place to place, so why now has it decided to offer something with the give of Teflon-reinforced oak? Well, obviously this was supposed to be a sports car, but there’s more to it than that. Plainly, it was designed with the American market in mind and, equally plainly, Americans don’t care much for the notion of being slim. So, like all yank tanks, the
SC was given marshmallow, waft-matic suspension.
This, however, doesn’t work in Europe where we have hairpin bends, and where people who weigh 24st are the exception rather than the rule.
So, Lexus beefed up the suspension for the European market. Great. But then they decided to fit, as standard, tyres that can run at 55mph for a hundred miles even if they have no air in them.
To do this, the sidewall of the tyre has to be able to support the weight of the car and that means it must have the give of a Hollywood sergeant major. Run over a pebble with a normal tyre and it will squidge out the bump. Run over a pebble in a Lexus and you’ll burst out of your shirt like the Incredible Hulk.
It is fantastically uncomfortable. You learn to weave down roads so that you miss manhole covers and you endlessly stab away at the satellite-navigation system, desperately trying to find roads that don’t have speed humps.
Why can’t it just have a spare wheel? I know the boot is barely big enough to accommodate the needs of an Ethiopian refugee, but if that’s the problem put it in the car. I’d happily sit on it. It would be a damn sight more comfortable than the alternative.
Except of course it wouldn’t, because the alternative is a Mercedes SL or a Jaguar XK8, and nobody would buy a £50,000 Lexus SC in preference unless they were a drooling vegetable.
There’s more, too, because the SC has weird handling. Steering it is like steering the car in a computer game. There’s no sense that what you’re doing with the wheel has anything to do with the direction of travel.
The only good thing is that you’ll never experience this because you’d never get through the styling force field. This car looks like a cross between a 1950s Buick and a duvet. There are lots of ugly cars out there these days — the new BMW Compact, the Mercedes C-class Sports Coupé and that towering colossus of awfulness, the Discovery — but the monkfish Lexus beats them all.
To be fair, the looks are improved when the roof is folded, Mercedes-style, into the boot.
But the drawback then is that people can see you more clearly. And you can hear them laughing.
I hated this car. It sits up there with the Peugeot 607 and the Vauxhall Vectra as one of the all-time baddies, which is why I’m amazed that that Britain’s annual allocation of 250 cars has already been sold.
Obviously, that’s good news for you because it means you couldn’t get one even if the breeze of insanity took you in the night. But it does mean that there are 250 people out there with driving licences and 50,000 spare pounds, even though they are, by any rational measure, clinically insane.
(I don't think he liked it.)
SUNDAY DECEMBER 09 2001
Jeremy Clarkson: This ugly, clunky Lexus is only any good if you’re on a diet
GOOD news for fat people. You can now attach your body to a new kind of portable machine that vibrates and turns all your blubber into muscle. It’s called the Lexus SC — the Slendertone Coupé.
You climb aboard in Oxford, a shorty 40-year-old with what looks like a Lilo stuffed down the front of your shirt, and you emerge in Manchester with a torso the shape of Dairylea cheese, a back like a sack of pythons and buttocks like a pair of ostrich eggs.
And this is rather more than a slimming gadget because the Lexus SC 430, with its silk ’n’ cream 4.3 litre V8 engine, can also be used as a car. Twitch your right foot and you go from 0 to 60 in 6sec on your way to an electronically limited top speed of 155mph.
Furthermore, as the miles and the pounds peel away, you can listen to the utterly fabulous Mark Levinson stereo system and revel in a gearbox that adjusts itself to suit the driver’s style.
But — and this is the biggest, most rounded “but” you will read all week — sitting in this car is like sitting on a trotting horse.
It’s odd. Lexus has built a reputation for making cars that glide from place to place, so why now has it decided to offer something with the give of Teflon-reinforced oak? Well, obviously this was supposed to be a sports car, but there’s more to it than that. Plainly, it was designed with the American market in mind and, equally plainly, Americans don’t care much for the notion of being slim. So, like all yank tanks, the
SC was given marshmallow, waft-matic suspension.
This, however, doesn’t work in Europe where we have hairpin bends, and where people who weigh 24st are the exception rather than the rule.
So, Lexus beefed up the suspension for the European market. Great. But then they decided to fit, as standard, tyres that can run at 55mph for a hundred miles even if they have no air in them.
To do this, the sidewall of the tyre has to be able to support the weight of the car and that means it must have the give of a Hollywood sergeant major. Run over a pebble with a normal tyre and it will squidge out the bump. Run over a pebble in a Lexus and you’ll burst out of your shirt like the Incredible Hulk.
It is fantastically uncomfortable. You learn to weave down roads so that you miss manhole covers and you endlessly stab away at the satellite-navigation system, desperately trying to find roads that don’t have speed humps.
Why can’t it just have a spare wheel? I know the boot is barely big enough to accommodate the needs of an Ethiopian refugee, but if that’s the problem put it in the car. I’d happily sit on it. It would be a damn sight more comfortable than the alternative.
Except of course it wouldn’t, because the alternative is a Mercedes SL or a Jaguar XK8, and nobody would buy a £50,000 Lexus SC in preference unless they were a drooling vegetable.
There’s more, too, because the SC has weird handling. Steering it is like steering the car in a computer game. There’s no sense that what you’re doing with the wheel has anything to do with the direction of travel.
The only good thing is that you’ll never experience this because you’d never get through the styling force field. This car looks like a cross between a 1950s Buick and a duvet. There are lots of ugly cars out there these days — the new BMW Compact, the Mercedes C-class Sports Coupé and that towering colossus of awfulness, the Discovery — but the monkfish Lexus beats them all.
To be fair, the looks are improved when the roof is folded, Mercedes-style, into the boot.
But the drawback then is that people can see you more clearly. And you can hear them laughing.
I hated this car. It sits up there with the Peugeot 607 and the Vauxhall Vectra as one of the all-time baddies, which is why I’m amazed that that Britain’s annual allocation of 250 cars has already been sold.
Obviously, that’s good news for you because it means you couldn’t get one even if the breeze of insanity took you in the night. But it does mean that there are 250 people out there with driving licences and 50,000 spare pounds, even though they are, by any rational measure, clinically insane.
(I don't think he liked it.)
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