Top Gear to Sample RC-F

3965 Views 10 Replies 6 Participants Last post by soarer, Feb 28, 2015

spoonful

Discussion Starter · Feb 23, 2015

By CLarkson no less...

Richard Hammond is air-lifted onto a mountain in the wilderness of Canada with a watch that he can send a distress signal from. Unfortunately for Hammond, in his case, the signal is to be received and acted upon by none other than Clarkson and May. Reluctantly, the pair set off on an epic quest to rescue their colleague using two pickup trucks: a Hennessy Velociraptor and a Chevrolet Silverado.
Clarkson hits the test track, for the first time this season, in the all-new Lexus RC F coupe. Gillian Anderson will be the seventh celebrity in series twenty-two to take to the Top Gear test track in the reasonably priced car.

BUT, hes already expressed some less than favorable feeling towards the F in an article about the new NX...

"Only recently I tried the new RC F, which is a four-seat, two-door sports coupé priced and powered to compete with the BMW M4. And despite what my colleague said last week, it misses the target by about 217 miles, partly because it weighs more than the Atlantic Ocean and partly because you drive around everywhere in a wail of dreary understeer."

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That's inline with what many other journalists have said about the RC-F when comparing it to the M4 and even by just judging the RC-F on it's own. With the RC-F being 400lbs heavier than the M4...it's a lot of weight to cut out.

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Lex Luther

· #3 · Feb 24, 2015

The weight is definitely something that should be brought up in a review. I'm sure that contributes to the under steer complaints as well. You have to hand it to Top Gear though; they have a great way with words. e.g. "weighs more than the Atlantic Ocean."

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supratt

· #4 · Feb 24, 2015

Lex Luther said:
The weight is definitely something that should be brought up in a review. I'm sure that contributes to the under steer complaints as well. You have to hand it to Top Gear though; they have a great way with words. e.g. "weighs more than the Atlantic Ocean."

From what I've read, a large amount of the extra weight is from the midsection of the chassis, which was built to allow the RC to become a convertible without having to do any major strengthening or other structural revision.

Unfortunately, the dealers then voted down the idea of an RC convertible in favour of a 3-row crossover, but we are left saddled with the extra weight.

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Lex Luther

· #5 · Feb 25, 2015

supratt said:
From what I've read, a large amount of the extra weight is from the midsection of the chassis, which was built to allow the RC to become a convertible without having to do any major strengthening or other structural revision.

Unfortunately, the dealers then voted down the idea of an RC convertible in favour of a 3-row crossover, but we are left saddled with the extra weight.

So ultimately that may have been a poor decision it seems. You can only look ahead so far, but Lexus should have known better. At least now it would be nice to have the option of the convertible since they had prepped for it.

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soarer

· #6 · Feb 25, 2015

As much as i'd like to see them take some serious action on improving the RC, for some reason I have a feeling they just won't rush into cutting it's weight, I just hope it's the former.

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Sykes

· #7 · Feb 25, 2015

supratt said:
From what I've read, a large amount of the extra weight is from the midsection of the chassis, which was built to allow the RC to become a convertible without having to do any major strengthening or other structural revision.

Unfortunately, the dealers then voted down the idea of an RC convertible in favour of a 3-row crossover, but we are left saddled with the extra weight.

the middle section came from the old IS convertible, I know the conventional story is it was designed with a convertible in mind... but it actually started life as a convertible

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supratt

· #8 · Feb 26, 2015

Sykes said:
the middle section came from the old IS convertible, I know the conventional story is it was designed with a convertible in mind... but it actually started life as a convertible

True - but the point I was making is that the reason they went with the IS convertible mid-section is so that the RC could also become a convertible at some future stage. I think we are saying the same thing.

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Sykes

· #9 · Feb 26, 2015

supratt said:
True - but the point I was making is that the reason they went with the IS convertible mid-section is so that the RC could also become a convertible at some future stage. I think we are saying the same thing.

we are, difference of semantics realistically. The benefit however is excellent chassis stiffness through corners

ok its weighty, but I'll take the 3 hundreth second loss in overall lap time for a responsive and enjoyable chassis on the street

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DCRH

· #10 · Feb 26, 2015

Sykes said:
we are, difference of semantics realistically. The benefit however is excellent chassis stiffness through corners ok its weighty, but I'll take the 3 hundreth second loss in overall lap time for a responsive and enjoyable chassis on the street

Are you absolutely sure you want to lose out on all those hundredths of seconds, do consider what that will do with your daily commutes!
5-10 years down the road, that's a lot of time lost

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soarer

· #11 · Feb 28, 2015

"street" is a good way to think about it
too many people only consider what it can do on the track and as great as that is, most of us won't be doing that often enough to matter.

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