Lexus is up to something, but right now only Toyota’s luxury division knows the truth. Lexus continues to use social media to tease a new F-Sport product with no further supporting details for us. At this point, all we know is that it has a hood with the Lexus F sport logo, red paint and a door.
Lexus plans to bring us a brand new F-Sport model with a debut set set for February 22, 2021, at 11:00 AM Eastern Standard Time. Until then, we can only speculate based on a few clues released by Lexus and collected by our team.
The Lexus F-Sport and full-on F products are unique varieties among other luxury performance cars. Rather than using the most advanced technology to squeeze out diminishing returns on performance, Lexus’ sporty products are more sensitive. If you were to cross-shop one of Lexus’s performance cars with rivals based on the spec sheets alone, Lexus wouldn’t sell any of their sporty product offerings.
Lexus F products are characterized by the naturally aspirated 2UR 5.0-liter V8 engine that sets it apart from its scaled-down turbocharged competition. While Toyota and Lexus strive for more fuel-efficient powertrains that must also remain competitive, we expect the 2UR V8 to live in the past as one of the last great naturally aspirated V8s.
Instead, for this upcoming F-Sport Lexus, we hope to see at least a new turbocharged V6 engine, which will allow Lexus to compete with mid-tier performance models from its German rivals. While a turbo engine will lack the character of a V8, its performance potential is hard to ignore and Lexus can compete with its rivals who have achieved impressive performance from comparable engines.