The of the line for Inline 6?

[ToyoHabu]

Was talking with Eric VanCleef who runs a shop and has raced for toyota in the Grand-Am and goody's dash series ( nascar series for smaller cars for those unaware) he has run MKIV Supras and Celicas. This next season he is going to run TWO Lexus IS300 in the Grand-Am ST class. If evrything goes right I'll be in his pit crew in some capacity( hey waterboy ) But In my last conversation with him he said the person who he obtained these race cars from was prepping two IS350 !!!???? Apperntly The I6 is now gone, replaced by an all alloy 3.5 liter V6. Is this so ?

 

[Jeff Lange]

The IS300 is being replaced with the IS250 and IS350, the IS350 has a direct-port injection VVTL-i, 3.5L V-6 with 305hp, N/A, it's quite the engine.

As far as I know, after the IS300 goes bye bye, I don't think Toyota will have anything in North America with an Inline-6...

 

[SP 7M]

Not to steal your thunder, Jeff, but the new IS250 has a 2.5L V6 with 205hp and will be available in both an FR and FAWD layout. It will also be the only one of the two to have a manual trans available-which will most-likely be a 6sp. The IS350 has a 3.5L VVT-i V6 with 306 hp and 277 lbs./ft. of torque, has a 6sp. auto trans and will only be available in an FR layout.

I've read a couple articles on the IS350 (OCT/05 Motor Trend, SEP/OCT/05 Speed Magazine) and I'm pretty impressed with it, easily more so than the IS300. It looks much more refined and mature. A tasty option is the new 18" wheels that are wrapped with 225/40 rubber, front and rear. The brake rotors are substantial, to say the least, at 13.2" and 12.2." It also has a lower coefficient of drag than the MKIV Supra-.28 vs. .30 (spoiler-less, as I remember it). It charges to 60mph in a considerable 5.5 seconds and reaches 100 in the 1/4 at 14 flat-hello 350Z!

The writers at Speed Magazine made it clear that this is not [first and foremost] a BMW 3-series competitor. They said that the engineers at Lexus did just what they wanted to do with the car and went by a so-called "Lexus must..." list. The article points out that the experience of driving this car sets it apart from BMW and is clearly a Lexus experience-one that I am very much a fan of.

I'm pretty excited to see these on the streets when I return to America in December. I'm sure it will end up being a great seller with many very happy customers.