If I had had the cash, at the time, I would never have considered a new one with those figures. the 300 is sportier, but who would buy and IS300 when they could have a GS300.
I'm told it is meant to be a small engined smooth cruiser, not as sport saloon. I think they realised later with the 220d, the IS250, and the IS-F that people actually want fast with small and comfy.
Clio F1 :-p - 2.0 16v, 197bhp, 0-60 6.4 seconds. Official top speed is
134mph on the original spec gearbox, I have a video of me on (what we thought, but were wrong...) an autobahn doing 137mph GPS checked, which was only like, 137-138 on the speedo to my surprise. It had revs to go as well hehe, we weren't as far as the shift light... I don't know the official figures, but, real life 30-33mpg on a nice run, 23-25mpg if you giving it razz a lot or stuck in town. Oh and 199gm/km - I remember that because I thought "I wonder if that's deliberately one under 200 because that's another tax band...".
R26.R does 0-60 in 6.0, and is 120kg lighter so probably better on fuel too. But it doesn't have rear seats, or a radio, or glass rear windows, or tyres you can use in the rain...
Because it adds up to more than the raw data? I thought long and hard about the IS200 as I like the fact that it isn't a BMW, Mercedes Benz or Audi, but the majority of owners appear to love them or report that is just works.
Needs revving hard to perform, though; feels very flat in the lower half of the rev range, but like everything you would get used to it.
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