If you are in the market for a naturally-aspirated V8 grand tourer, the options are few. Amongst those is the Lexus LC500 and the Japanese luxury brand has announced some upgrades for its strikingly styled grand tourer
Starting inside, Lexus has finally added Android Auto to the big coupe's infotainment capability, with full screen mirroring.
There aren’t any substantial exterior styling changes, but the available colour palette has been improved. Lexus will now offer its formerly exclusive Nori Green Pearl paint finish as an option for all LCs and there’s a new Cadium orange hue, too.
Lexus can also now supply a contrasting wheel colour on your LC coupe, with a darkened 20-inch alloy wheel design.
Beyond the new swathe of colours, Lexus has applied some mechanical engineering improvements to the LC range. The suspension components are updated with a new rear stabilizer bar and the electronic absorber controls have now software parameters.
Perhaps the most exciting news for Lexus fans who regard the LC coupe range as a driver’s car, is a new ACTIVE Cornering Assist function. This is effectively the Lexus name for torque vectoring and should enable any LC to exhibit sharper lateral dynamics, by trimming the brakes on its insidewheels, when cornering.
The new suspension components have also enabled Lexus to trim the LC coupe’s weight by 10 kg and further enhancing the LC’s driver appeal is a reprogrammed ten-speed automatic gearbox.
Lexus drivetrain engineers have tested and validated new software, which will hold gears for longerduring peak acceleration. The gearbox has been tuned to more regularly gear down to second gear, at lower-speeds with a lot of steering angle, to allow appropriate acceleration through the apex of corners.
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