First off, in normal mode, the F Sport Performance’s adaptive suspension is softer, but it’s not soft. It damps the road beautifully and starts showing off on the freeway. As you can see from the hero shot at the top of the review, we drove the IS 500 F Sport Performance to Las Vegas from California. That’s a long, mostly straight four-hour run on a freeway that is heavily used by trucks as well as gamblers in cars traveling through the middle of the desert. The Lexus soaked it all up and, in conjunction with the brilliant Mark Levinson sound system, we arrived surprisingly fresh.
On the urban bits on either side of the freeway where there’s more stop-and-go traffic, the transmission is smooth, and the steering is nicely weighted. It’s a great cruiser, no doubt about it. But it’s an F Sport Performance version of the IS 500, so it comes with sticky tires and a Sport Mode that firms up the suspension, tightens the throttle input, and quickens gearshifts.
