With its esoteric concept-car design appeal, superbly inviting luxury interior and 457bhp atmospheric V8 engine, the Lexus LC has no trouble grabbing attention. Whether that might be enough to tempt you to part with close-to £100,000 for a Lexus LC, which became available in convertible form in 2020, will no doubt come down to whether you like its alternative looks and character, and whether you wouldn’t prefer one of the more sporting convertibles that your money might buy.
If you want a luxury, two-seater cruiser, you’ll find an awful lot to like here. The LC is now a more refined car than it was when launched in 2017, having had its runflat tyres traded for better rubber and its suspension retuned for a more supple ride and more poised handling. Unlike in the coupe version, you can’t get the LC’s 3.5-litre V6 hybrid powertrain here; nor the car’s optional four-wheel steering.
But the LC Convertible handles quite neatly for such a heavy car in any case. It’s better in rich, laid-back cruising mode than when driven like a sports car, when the car’s superficially direct steering and its woolly-feeling brake pedal stand in the way of top-level driver reward. But still it’s a car that it’s easy to enjoy at just the right pace.
There is evidence that people will pay close to £20,000 in this class for cars that are slow, unresponsive and impractical and feel flimsy and imprecise on the road – provided they come with a roof that lets the sunshine in. Against that background, BMW could have got away with ‘phoning one in’ with this car – but, to its credit, it never has.