While Lexus is still keeping the flame of naturally aspirated V8s alive, one of those lights is about to go out. Come November, the Lexus RC F coupe will be dead. It’s been in production for a decade, and while that’s an awfully long production run, the premise of an atmospherically-fed V8 in a reasonably sized luxury coupe feels like an enticing anomaly given how much the car landscape has changed over the past ten years. However, I’m getting a strange feeling that the RC F will simply fade into the sunset.
This should be a big deal given the automotive landscape. Coupes are dying, with Mercedes-Benz having streamline three different coupes into one replacement model, Audi killing coupes entirely, Infiniti no longer offering a coupe at all, and Cadillac deep-sixing the ATS Coupe over the past few years. At the same time, naturally aspirated engines are an endangered species. The Germans got rid of them in the 2010s, and since then, Lexus is the only player in the mainstream luxury space offering an atmospheric V8.
We’ve seen used enthusiast cars matching this description gain significant interest over the past few years, from the V8-powered E92 BMW M3 to the naturally aspirated C63 AMG coupe. However, the RC F doesn’t seem to be going out to widespread trumpets and tributes. Why?
The story of the RC F starts with a gem, a five-liter naturally aspirated V8 with Yamaha-designed heads. Called the 2UR-GSE, it originally served duty in the 416-horsepower IS F, but Lexus wanted to turn up the wick for its next application. Compression was lifted from 11.8:1 to 12.3:1, the rev limiter was raised from 6,800 rpm to 7,300 rpm, and output climbed to 467 horsepower at 7,100 rpm and 389 lb.-ft. of torque from 4,800 rpm to 5,600 rpm.
However, that five-liter V8 also came with a weird chassis. See, the RC is a bit of a Frankenstein creation, with the front section of a GS, the midsection of the old IS convertible, and the rear section of the third-generation IS all coming together. From a cost perspective, it’s a relatively sensible move, and it got Lexus the rigidity it wanted, but weight was a sacrifice. At the same time when an F82 BMW M4 weighed 3,530 pounds, the RC F weighed in the ballpark of 4,000 pounds. Ouch. No surprise, then, that when Car And Driver first tested an RC F, weight was an obvious problem.
Mass is the RC F’s millstone. It has 400 pounds on a BMW M4 and weighs as much as the four-wheel-drive Audi RS5. In a three-way drag race, the Bimmer walks away, with the F and RS5 keeping pace through the quarter-mile. By 130 mph, the RC F has eked out a nearly two-second lead on the RS5. Keep your foot in it and a governor abruptly halts acceleration at 171 mph.
With all the data crunched, the RC F proves no quicker than the old IS F. Nor is it slower, though. We recorded a 4.3-second zero-to-60 and a quarter-mile time of 12.8 seconds, identical to a 2008 IS F. Identical, too, is the naturally aspirated V-8 wail. While muted in the cabin, pedestrians will flinch when the intake’s noise flap opens and the camshaft timing changes the engine’s rumble into a sweaty roar.
Alright, so an extra 400 pounds on a BMW M4 didn’t exactly help the RC F’s acceleration, and that makes you wonder how it might affect cornering. Sure, Lexus offered this performance coupe with a trick torque vectoring differential, but the laws of physics are enforced by a mechanism commonly referred to as “finding out”, and Evo magazine certainly found out the limitations of the RC F when pressing it hard.
The brakes cope pretty well but are groaning within a handful of really hard laps, the car is slightly clumsy on turn-in and understeer sets in quickly and that engine – which sounds fantastic and promises so much – feels overly burdened. It never feels the full 471bhp and simply doesn’t deliver the instant, bruising torque you’d hope to find. Nor does it sparkle at the top end… It’s all a little underwhelming.
On the road things are much better. The steering is really nicely weighted and fluid and seems well tuned to the car’s reactions as it tackles a series of corners. Grip and traction feel strong, the ride is pretty supple and the gearbox might not be dual-clutch precise but does a pretty effective job. But still it doesn’t really feel fast or alive to your inputs. It’s fun but somehow not very exciting.
Therein lies the rub of the RC F. It looks wild, it sounds epic, and yet from my brief experience with one, it wasn’t exciting enough for me to immediately come away wanting one. Perhaps as a result, it’s always been another player in the performance executive coupe segment rather than a big player. Still, that didn’t stop Lexus from improving it as time went on, with the most notable series of tweaks found in the 2020 RC F Track Edition.
Here, Lexus shaved a significant 176 pounds off of the RC F’s curb weight thanks to a whole host of measures. The CV axles were now hollow, the intake manifold shaved down, the spring brackets fabricated from aluminum rather than steel, and the rear bumper beam swapped out for a composite aluminum and carbon fiber piece. The hood was made from carbon fiber, the brakes were carbon ceramic, the wheels were lightweight BBS forged units, and the muffler was crafted from titanium. Even the air conditioning compressor was replaced with a smaller item, dedication to weight reduction without substantially affecting usability. At the same time, stiffer steering rack bushings targeted better road feel, stiffer rear subframe bushings reduced deflection, and the final drive ratio leapt from 2.97:1 to 3.13:1. Add in an extra five horsepower and the result was a more desirable RC F, albeit one that came at a price. The RC F Track Edition stickered for $97,675 and that’s just way too much money.
Mind you, it’s not like Lexus learned nothing from the Track Edition. In fact, the shorter final drive, hollow CV axles, smaller air-con compressor, composite bumper support, aluminum spring brackets, and the bump in horsepower all made it to the regular RC F as part of the 2020 facelift, but it might’ve been a bit too late.
These days, the RC F has two big problems, and they’re called the LC 500 and the IS 500. If you love Lexus’ five-liter naturally aspirated V8 more than the idea of a coupe, the IS 500 offers the same rip-snorting power as the RC F but at a lower cost. At the same time, the stunning LC 500 simply took over from the RC F as Lexus’ halo car. Sure, it might be priced in a different league, but it’s the Lexus coupe that everyone desires.
In a way, the writing was on the wall for the RC F. With production ending in Japan this November, it’s getting one last special edition to celebrate a decade of life. Called the Final Edition, it gains a new shade of silver paint, a black-and-red interior, and plenty of carbon fiber. On the outside, BBS wheels, black mirrors, and red calipers add a subtle bit of punch to go with the carbon fiber lip, roof, spoiler, and diffuser, while on the inside, expect solid quantities of suede. It’s a bit anticlimactic, but it fits the somber situation.
Here we are, a performance coupe with a naturally aspirated V8 is dying and nobody seems wildly shaken up over it. The Lexus RC F is likely better than we remember considering how heavy cars are now, serious time has passed since its introduction, and we’re all okay with letting it ride off into the sunset. Ten years is a long time for a car to be on sale for, and it might be best to think of the RC F as a stepping stone. It laid part of the foundation for the exciting IS 500, the emotional LC 500, and the gone but not forgotten GS F. Will it be collectible ten years from now? I guess we’ll just have to see, won’t we?
(Photo credits: Lexus)
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I think their big mistake was not marketing it as a muscle car. I mean come on, it totally could’ve been a Mustang/Camaro/Challenger competitor with minor tweaks!
Honestly all of the Lexus discourse I remember from the era when these were new-ish was that nobody liked the grille – the idea and execution seemed great, but the cars were simply too ugly to be worth considering. And… I can’t really disagree there.
Toyota could have looked at their old Celica for inspiration and given it a different nose that looks more “muscular,” and it could’ve been marketed as a more refined and reliable alternative to the American muscle cars… if not in fact more American than the so-called American muscle cars, since Toyota actually builds vehicles in the US. They succeeded in getting Americans excited about their trucks, so why not a muscle car?
Now would’ve been the time to do it too, with Chevy and Dodge out of the picture and Lexus clearly in need of new models.