2019 Lexus IS 350 F Sport review by Mark Fulmer

Staying Cool in a Hot Car

Can a mid sized sedan turn heads standing still, and also make the driver feel like Han Solo flying through an asteroid field?

Yes. If it's the flaming red 2019 Lexus IS 350 Sport.

Power. The IS sports a 3.5L V6 engine with 311 horsepower and 280 lb.-ft of torque. That can do 0-60 is 5.7 seconds. The steering is tight and responsive to the road feel. That suspension has been tuned to not only keep that connection to the road, but also to shield out bumps and grooves and switches to adaptive dampers when you toggle on the Sport or Sport+ modes. Paddle shifters are there to shift when you need it or just feel like it.

Safety. The Lexus Safety System + provides a Pre-Collision System with Pedestrian Detection, Lane Departure warning with Steering assist, and High Speed Dynamic Radar Cruise Control which is about as close as I want to get to a self-driving car (until they come up with a computer system that never crashes, as well as software that can't be hacked).

Convenience. The standard 7-inch screen is fine, but with the Navigation and Mark Levinson upgrade package (a surround sound killer audio system via 835 watts powering 15 speakers) there is a 10.3-inch display which is splitable into dual windows for customized display. The Remote Touch interface takes some getting used to, and I look forward to the day when almost all controls are possible using speech recognition, and customized heads-up displays are possible (although current heads-up displays simply vanish if you are wearing polarized sunglasses – but you can deal with that by either tilting your head slightly or peering over the top of your shades). As you'd expect from a Lexus, the fit and finish and materials used are top shelf.

The IS 350 F-Sport combines performance, safety, ride comfort into a red hot driving experience.