Introduction

The Lexus IS 300 stuffs snappy performance and superior quality into a sassy compact four-door sedan. It's the enthusiast's choice among the more affordable cars in the Lexus stable and, inside and out, it looks like nothing else in the lineup. The Lexus IS 300 is comparably priced with the more conservative Lexus ES 330, but is targeted toward a younger audience. While the ES 330 uses a V6 and front-wheel drive, the IS 300 uses an inline-6 and rear-wheel drive. The ES is smooth and sophisticated; the IS is hip and aggressive. With 215-horsepower, rear-wheel drive and road-hugging handling, the IS 300 is an alternative to the benchmark BMW 3 Series and Nissan G35. The SportCross sport wagon brings practicality to the mix.

Walkaround

The Lexus IS 300 looks like a sports sedan with short front and rear overhangs. Its wheels are pushed out toward the corners of the car. The IS 300's wedge-shaped form features a low prow with a bulge down the center of the hood that suggests power, especially from the driver's seat. Creased lines on the hood flow down steeply from raked A-pillars to a familial trapezoidal grille, ringed with chrome and bordered by jewel-like HID headlamp clusters. Round halogen foglights are shielded within the air dam behind trapezoidal composite lenses. In the rear, round red taillights peer out of contoured bezels behind aerodynamic clear covers. The SportCross looks like a sporty wagon. It's more sport than wagon. There is no roof rack available nor any rain gutters to attach an aftermarket rack. The three rear windows on each side of the SportCross look a bit odd, the back two crowded, as if they're an unsolved design problem. Behind the rear door window there's a non-opening triangular pane that looks like an old-style vent window, and behind that there's another one shaped like a triangle/trapezoid outlined by a thick black band inside the glass where it fits against the car's interior.

Interior Features

Designed to suggest a cockpit, the Lexus IS 300 cabin is oriented around the driver. Graphite-tinged plastics and machined metallic finishes set the theme. Drilled aluminum pedals, a polished metal shift ball, a notched shift gate rimmed by chrome, and doorsills covered with stainless steel scuff plates studded with rubber cleats add a racy, high-tech image. A graphite plate on the driver-side door panel surrounds rocker toggles that power the windows, door locks and mirrors. The instrument panel includes a round analog speedometer inset with three smaller gauges for temperature, battery charge, and instant fuel mileage. The whole cluster is designed to resemble a sports chronograph wristwatch, and in its attempt to be cute, cool, clever, unique, whatever, it fails the no-nonsense test: The instant fuel gauge is too small to be useful, as a tiny needle flips in a tiny semicircle between 0 and 80 mpg. The watch-face cluster stands between a half-moon tachometer on the left, whose clarity is compromised by the clutter of the faux chronograph and quarter-circle fuel gauge to the right, above a digital display for gear selection and trip odometer. It's all accented with bright silver. The power bucket seats felt a bit hard and wide at first, but we found adequate lateral support when we drove a SportCross hard through the curves. Two-position seat memory for the driver's seat is included with the optional power seats. We liked the full leather package. A very attractive, stitched leather three-spoke steering wheel tilts manually. Models with automatic transmission get pairs of buttons on the left and right spokes that enable the driver to shift up or down one gear at a time without removing his or her hands from the wheel. The front button downshifts with the thumb and the back button upshifts with the middle finger. The vents and pods for audio and climate controls drop down from the center of the dash to the console. Climate and audio controls are accented in bright silver and black trim. The center dash has a storage compartment with a lid. The doors lock automatically when underway. The sedan's firm rear bench will accommodate three in a pinch, and has a fold-down armrest that conceals a small pass-through portal to the trunk. With its 60/40 split rear seat backs folded, the SportCross offers 21.8 cubic feet of cargo space, more than twice as much as the trunk of the sedan. The wheel wells intrude quite a bit into the SportCross cargo area, making the space hourglass-shaped, which reduces its practical carrying capacity. Fitting a bicycle into the back isn't easy and there's no available roof rack to mount one on top.