Way back in October, The Good Car Guy pasted Lexus with criticism “simply because Lexus should know better”. When Lexus goes off offending GoodCarBadCar.net with an ugly convertible, it ends up in The Bad 8 and Lexus smartly decides to soon remove it from the marketplace. Yet Lexus deigned to offer consumers another ugly convertible. For the second time it’s a hardtop convertible; making good design difficult. (See the new BMW Z4 for exceptions to the rule.) Despite the Lexus IS sedan’s ability to look more than half-decent, Lexus designers have turned out another boat in automobile drag.
Why turn up the rhetoric for a second time? Well, Lexus has released a new Gallery of photos for the Lexus IS C. It won’t be published here, because… three pictures is enough. Most of the Gallery is taken up with pics of the front end. From the front, the Lexus appears straightforwardly ISesque. Turn the car around and start shooting, however, and things turn ugly. The pictures you see here include a normal IS, just to show how how stable a foundation there was, and the worst three angles I could find of the new Lexus IS Convertible.
Take note of the front wheelwell in the first picture. Because of the additional weight, Lexus has clearly been forced to negatively alter the suspension. This has resulted in excess space between the wheel and the fender. BMW’s convertibles don’t do this. The second picture doesn’t accentuate the disastrous front wheelwell quite so much, but the bulky rear end is shouting loudly. Finding space for the roof is difficult when it’s a hard metal surface. Lexus jacked up the trunk height. That’s a shame. Finally, the third pic shows the excessive rear overhang; another problem Lexus designers couldn’t avoid because of the hardtop. Also, the upswing which is parallel with the rear headrests probably seemed like a good idea when first pencilled in. Now, it further dramatizes the difference between what the rear end should/could be and what it is. With the sedan, the wheelbase looks appropriate. From this angle, the wheelbase looks 6 inches too long.
Even without reading your explanation of why the car looks bad, even I can see there are some serious design flaws…I just wasn’t sure what until you pointed them out.
Apparently there aren’t enough Type A Germans working at Lexus.