Saturday, May 11, 2013

2013 Lexus GS F Review and Release

2013 Lexus GS-F Rumor Reality
2013 Lexus GS-F

Auto­car is report­ing that the Lexus GS-F is on deck for 2013 and will be pow­ered by the LFA’s V10:

Lexus engi­neers are work­ing on reduc­ing the engine’s capac­ity by around 200cc to 4.6 litres and power to 450bhp. The idea is to improve low-range torque, although even with the reduced power out­put the GS-F will become the most pow­er­ful road-going Japan­ese saloon ever built.

The GS-F will be fit­ted with Toyota’s first torque vec­tor­ing dif­fer­en­tial. Sim­i­lar to the diff used on BMW’s M cars and the likes of the X6 SUV, the ‘torque split unit’ actively appor­tions drive between the rear wheels to aid han­dling. A sim­i­lar sys­tem is also expected to be fit­ted to the new SC.

The GS F has been long rumored, and at the Detroit Auto Show, even Lexus rep­re­sen­ta­tives were whis­per­ing about the pos­si­bil­ity. The time­frame seems rea­son­able, and
it wouldn’t sur­prise me to hear that Toy­ota was work­ing on torque vec­tor­ing technology.

Also men­tioned in the arti­cle is the next-generation SC:

The new SC will be unveiled in mid-2014, although the cur­rent car is due to fin­ish pro­duc­tion this July, leav­ing a four-year gap between the two cars. How­ever, the next model will be a hybrid, pow­ered by a 5.0-litre V8 and an elec­tric motor dri­ving the rear wheels only.

Can’t see the SC going on a four-year hia­tus, even if it’s depen­dant on GS-F tech­nol­ogy. That would be a long time for Lexus to go with­out a true sports coupe.

[Source: Auto­car]