Our Holiday Automotive All Stars

The IS F throws the gauntlet in the face of the BMW M3. Its bulging hood and aero nose shout power. As we found earlier in our IS F video Quick Test, there's no other Japanese car quite like it.

With a 5.0-liter, 90-degree V8 engine, we could have put the IS F in our recent Big Honkin' V8 group, except the 416-horsepower mill is silky not honky. It has Yamaha cylinder heads with titanium intake valves. Happy to have Lexus engineers bring their talent to the competitive world of high-tech V8 engine development.

Trivia: F stands for Fuji Speedway, the car's main development track.

The 8-speed automatic with paddles upshifts in .1 second and obeys. Brembo brakes with 6-piston calipers and 14.2-inch front rotors are very effective. We also drove it at Willow Springs Raceway, a big circuit with a fast sweeper and two twitchy downhill turns, and we can say: the IS F handles. Lexus got it right first time, no surprise.