From Autospies: "While previous reports have surfaced showing pre-production placeholders for the upper tips, our test vehicle was full-functional for all four."

Nice, those are now some of the coolest exhausts in production.

Lexus reacted to the outcry.

That makes a bit more sense. The fake exhaust tips were unbelievably lame, even for Lexus' performance division.

I still hate Lexus.

what's to hate?

It's just the whole thing about how they got their original ideas from the Germans and now pretend that their cars are innovative and therefore better. I'll still take a Mercedes-Benz, thank you very much.

I think it's more like how they have a whole line-up of completely passion-free cars, with the exception of the old IS, which, when they updated it, they stripped it of its passion too thanks to having synthetic controls and undefeatable electronics, then the IS-F comes out with allows you to kill the electronics but it ugly as sin and still has an automatic with far too many gears in it and still doesn't match up to their competitors dynamically...it seems all Lexus can do is play catch up with its competitors in any arena where compassion and human interaction is the name of the game. It makes them and all their cars seem so cold and made for all the wrong reasons.

I think for 2007 there was a kill switch for all ISes, after the furor when the car was first released. I agree with the rest of your rant though.

I personally love Lexus, if only for the GS. It's second only to the 5-series in its segment in terms of dynamic capability, and it's probably the best-looking.

It's good looking for sure, but my understanding was that it wasn't a segment leader in handling--especially not compared to the A6 or the Infiniti M as well as the 5-Series. But it's been a while since I've read a review...do you know of any online?

I read it on a magazine back when it was released, can't even remember which one, probably Autocar. I've also driven all four cars in question. The 5-series is the best car in the segment by quite some margin. I found the A6 to be pretty boring to drive, and though the Infiniti M has a great engine, I actually found the GS to be a more entertaining drive.

Well, this just goes to show you that sitting around and bitching on the interweb can make a difference.

i actually like my dad's audi (Porsche ) exhaust tips more(sorry, cell phone pic)

I always thought those porsche/techart tips were awful!

exhaust tips is one area of car design where I feel function should appear to dictate form. I was passed by an older M5 today, and thought about how beautiful it's pipes were.

Those Porsche sport exhaust tips work a lot better on a 911 than an Audi...

Wow your dad has a pretty sweet looking Audi.

I care less about the looks, more about the sound. That's why Ferrari pipes are some of my favorite.

Anyway, I'd take a C63AMG over the IS-F anyday. Its not a bad effort from Lexus for a first timer

That's how I feel. The competition has been doing this for much longer. I wasn't expecting much.

uhh yah why would mustangs dad buy those tips (no offense to anyone who likes them ) but those things are ugly and probably don't sound that great either...however mustangs exhaust tips sound WICKED!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PA4qmz3-Edg