Two things you must drive ASAP to push the limits of your smile muscles?
The 2015 Lexus RC Coupe and the matching Team Associated RCF radio-controlled car!
A quick meeting with the rockstar team of the Lexus Southern region this week offers definitive proof that the RC marks a seachange for Lexus overall. The playful new mood of the Japanese luxury juggernaut is clear from first approach: five RC coupes to test drive, joined by a handful of the ultra-rapid RCF radio-controlled cars.
The ‘RC-RCF’ is another stark reminder that your drive memory for Lexus (and all radio-controlled cars) needs major updating. As a hardcore hobbyist in the 1990s, we packed giant tool bags and car kits to head off to anywhere we could test our RC trucks speed. Tiny allen wrenches and constant swapping of batteries in the chargers provided years of engineering-nerd entertainment as kids in the 1990s, so we naturally assumed we’d be instant experts driving RC cars of 2015.
With the ready-to-run (pre-assembled) APEX RCF from Team Associated, you have to reset all your senses to fire at lightning speed. The RC-RCF is an absolute rocketship with drifty cornering and incisive steering bite. A light drizzle dashed our hopes for being quickest through the cones in this parking-lot racetrack — but we left grinning like a 10-year-old all the same. The RC-RCF is so low that it drifts and slides joyfully where our old Tamiya stadium RC trucks would have rolled onto their lexan roofs. A big change in drive strategy is needed.
A similar level-reset is mandatory if your impression of Lexus drive manners is locked in the 1990s. Smooth, sedate and serene sedans defined Lexus for its first decade.
Cresting 26 years in the luxury market, Lexus has grown up and gone wild.
How wild? The Lexus Southern region office rolls around Atlanta in a clone of the SEMA InstaBuilt RCF with its eye-popping seafoam green wrap and giant Vossen alloys.
Substantively, the RC and RCF performing exceptionally well. They are neck and neck in sales with the BMW 4 series and M4 two-doors (within this zone of the country.)
Additional info tidbits? The Torque-Vectoring Differential that is so incredible on the RCF Carbon Package can be ordered individually — without the price jump of the carbon roof and spoilers.
The RC350 F Sport and RCF both flip from calm to climactic in Sport Plus drive modes, with the F Sport’s all-wheel-steering a joyful co-conspirator in corners and the RCF’s torque-vectoring diff an even more evil angel on your shoulder.
Faster, harder, louder — the new RC and RCF are uninhibited playthings – in all their forms.
Get to a showroom (and RC car hobby shop!) now to reflash your circuits. An update is required to feel the joyful 2015 Lexus performance mood — or simply to turn any dull day into a laughing, tail-out riot!
“Drift44” Arai Yutaka driving the Team Associated Lexus RC F radio-controlled car
2015 Lexus RC Playdate
Team Associated APEX Lexus RCF
2015 Lexus RCF #RseaF SEMA Showcar
RCF Color and Wheel Visualizer
http://www.car-revs-daily.com/2014/12/15/2015-lexus-rc-f-colors/
RCF Carbon Pack Track Drive Video
2015 Lexus RCF
Tom Burkart is the founder and managing editor of Car-Revs-Daily.com, an innovative and rapidly-expanding automotive news magazine.
He holds a Journalism JBA degree from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Tom currently resides in Charleston, South Carolina with his two amazing dogs, Drake and Tank.
Mr. Burkart is available for all questions and concerns by email Tom(at)car-revs-daily.com.