The Lexus LC 500 is hands-down one of the absolute best new cars on sale today. It’s the last great naturally aspirated V8 grand tourer, a scintillating blend of howl and leather striking an out-of-this-world pose. A difficult thing to improve on, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying. The latest notable attempt? One Japanese tuner has decided to effectively ditch the car’s spindle grille.
Ever since the 2011 Lexus LF-Gh concept car, the brand’s Predator-aping face has attracted scores of haters, with some valid complaints and some that are a bit out there. The treatment on the 2013-ish LX 570 looked like a half-hearted afterthought, but the LC 500 grand tourer has the most cohesive spindle grille we’ve seen yet. Still, that hasn’t stopped people from whinging about it, presumably the same sorts of people who earnestly enjoy a bowl of grits.
You want to know what an LC 500 would look like without its spindle grille? Well, you no longer have to imagine. This year’s Tokyo Auto Salon—think Japan’s SEMA show—was full of weird cars, and the Lexus LC Tom’s Edition is easily one of the strangest. On paper, there’s nothing strange about an iconic Toyota tuner reworking Lexus’ flagship, but you just need to look at this body kit.
Oh. Oh dear. That looks remarkably bland. Sure, there’s a little bit of LFA homage in the trapezoidal lower grille and triangular bumper trims, but the overall result is more reminiscent of an early CT 200h than a flagship supercar. It’s a rather anonymous down-the-road graphic simultaneously influenced by everything and nothing in particular, and even though this wide-angle shot is particularly unflattering, the situation doesn’t get much more visually exciting from other vantage points.
The rest of the LC 500 still looks tremendous, with clean surfacing, wide haunches, and that plunging hood line. Deleting the spindle grille results in a face that can’t quite match the boldness of the rest of the shape, and you’ll immediately see what I mean when you look at this photo of a regular LC 500 cabriolet.
Different color, similar angle, stock grille. Notice how everything just sort of resolves? The sweeping body line passes through the front arch, gets picked up by the daytime running light, and comes to a point at the skinniest part of the spindle grille. Likewise, the grille bezel continues the hood character lines without competition. Oh, and the simple vertical air curtain vents in the bumper don’t try to compete with the lighting bezels. Lexus just nailed it out of the gate with a car that still looks fresh.
In a way, this whole thing reminds me of those stick-on covers that hide a Y2K-era Porsche’s fried-egg headlights. It might be to someone’s tastes, but that doesn’t automatically make it superior in execution to standard. The surfacing and shut lines don’t quite look OEM, and the result is one that probably won’t age as gracefully as the original design.
On the plus side, it’s not like a body kit is the entire draw here. Tweaked suspension and powertrain modifications should make the Tom’s Edition LC 500 sharper and more emotive than the standard car. However, perhaps the move is to tick the boxes for the go-fast stuff without altering the cosmetics beyond the wider Tom’s Edition wheels.
Top graphic image: Tom’s
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