Automakers love a special edition because it’s a great opportunity to keep the product planners busy and squeeze out a slightly greater margin. Take one normal car, paint it a color not normally in the brochure, give it a numbered badge, and presto! To cap off the 2025 model year, Lexus is building 500 examples of what it calls the IS 500 Ultimate Edition, and while a special edition like this normally isn’t particularly newsworthy, something about how the brand seems to be phrasing this is worrying.
All of these special edition models will come in a light, almost-ceramic grey called Wind with a red-and-black interior, and feature a red-etched dashboard clock face, red seat belts, BBS wheels, and a serialized plaque. Under the hood, you’ll find the same 472-horsepower naturally aspirated V8 and eight-speed automatic as all other IS 500 models, a powertrain that isn’t as refined or as brisk as you get in a BMW M340i or Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing, but offers the most soul out of any middleweight compact sports sedan option.
So far, it seems like a relatively unremarkable special edition until we consider what “Ultimate” means. It’s hard to say that the IS 500 Ultimate Edition is the best of its kind because it seems mechanically identical to any other current IS 500. Lexus hasn’t announced any hardware or calibration changes, so it’s not like this limited-run example is obviously sharpened. It’s also not some stripped-down fundamental version of the IS 500, so it doesn’t fit that definition of the word either. That leads us to “Ultimate” being a synonym for final, and although Lexus isn’t commenting on future plans, I can’t help but wonder if the IS 500 is nearing the end of its run.
See, the current IS is essentially a heavy update of the third-generation car that went on sale for the 2014 model year. Its bones are more than a decade old, and although the five-liter V8 is still one of the most evocative engines on sale today, it dates back even further to the IS F of 2008. In a low-carbon world of cruelty-free energy and renewable vegetables, surely this sort of Neanderthalic thrill, turning prehistoric zooplankton into noise won’t be something new cars can do forever.
So, on the odd chance that this is the last variant of the IS 500 we ever see, is it a fitting end? Well, it’s certainly understated, but I’d like to see something with a little more dazzle. The past two model years have offered brilliant colors, Blue Vector (pictured above) and Flare Yellow, and perhaps something with a bit more flair than white would be a more fitting move. Maybe Nori Green, or that incredible Structure Blue offered on a limited batch of LC 500s, or Black Amethyst from the LFA color list, or perhaps going back into the heritage palette and digging up Auburn Sky from the original IS.
If 2025 is the last model year for the IS 500 with its magnificent V8, we’re all going to miss it when it’s gone. The only way to get into something similar without going second-hand is to invent a time machine and head back to an era when natural aspiration ruled the roost. Whether or not this is the end of the line for the naturally aspirated V8 compact sport sedan, who’d have thought that Lexus would be the last one standing in the segment?
Top graphic image: Lexus
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It just dawned on me that I’ve yet to see one of these on the street. I see plenty of other sport sedans – buck tooth M3s, M340i, AMGs, even the occasional Guilia Quad. No IS500s.
They seem to be selling. When I browse some Lexus dealers looking to see if a unicorn Nori Green SUV has somehow been produced and allocated to a local dealer, I often check the IS500 to see if there is something cool. The model in stock changes, but is usually a boring white or black, which only look good next to that awful cement gray.
It’s Lexus. That’s the joke with them, isn’t? Lexus always holds on to older tech for a little longer.
As it occurred to anyone they hooked it up to a horrible transmission because it is a only slightly better engine and having the transmission blown before the engine covers up the additional horrible design? Has it ever been hooked up to a decent transmission to find out if it sucks?
Trust no one
Frankly if it doesn’t come in a color spectrum from no color to all color it isn’t special. Have women taken over car colors where there is 50 shades of grey knowing men see 1 just to torture us?
Man I love that Lexus V8 so F-ing much…
I’ve always lusted after one of these but they’re really expensive for what they are and basically all they have is the V8. They’re meant to compete with the M340i/S5/C43/etc. variants but by the time Toyota’s stupid allocation system gets them to dealerships they’re 70 grand before markups. They’re a much harder sell when they cost as much as a base M3, and they’re basically the same price as a CT4V BW.
Those cars are weapons on a track. An IS500 can’t be tracked in stock form. For most people that doesn’t matter, but for me it does. At the end of the day it just comes down to how much you care about the engine, because that’s what you’re paying for here. The sedan that happens to be around it is a decade old…as is the transmission it’s hooked up to.
Is the engine so good that it can stand on its own? That’s subjective and depends on the buyer…but it’s undoubtedly a pretty special motor and its days are numbered. It’s also literally the only way to get a naturally aspirated V8 in a new sedan in 2025. So if all you care about is *Clarkson impersonating an American voice* the V8 motor, and $70,000 is chump change for you, I’d say go for it.
It’s also as good of an investment as a relatively normal car can be, because these things do not and will not depreciate. Nice 10 year old GSFs are still selling for 60 grand or more. A 2022 IS500 with 50,000 miles on it is still worth 50 grand. Trust me, I keep an eye on them. I’m personally not willing to part with that much money for what’s effectively a cruiser, but if you are you have my utmost respect.
But remember to set aside a couple grand for a nice exhaust. The stock setup on these is criminal and so quiet that they rely on pumped in audio. Let this elegant beast of an engine sing you and everyone in a one block radius the song of its people as god intended.
The transmission in these cars is what kills them. They suck ass, like horrible, for any sort of spirited driving. Worse than the 2008 ISF due to tuning.
I’ve read that it gets a little better once you get some heat into it and let it do its own shifting in the transmission’s sport mode…but even so, a ZF8 it is not, and if you want to row your own the Blackwing and M3 let you do it…hell if you can put up with front wheel drive and a 4 popper then you can save some money and get an Integra Type S, but I’d imagine that there are close to 0 people cross shopping an IS500 and an ITS.
“It’s also literally the only way to get a naturally aspirated V8 in a new sedan in 2025.“
Insanely depressing stat
It’s a real bummer
I can’t give a crap about nearly any electronic gauge out there, but the LF-A and IS-F/GS-F/ RC-F gauge cluster? Those were actually well done. They’re cool.
20+ years from now it’ll be interesting to see who repairs them, but they’re neat.
Sad to see it go, but more upset that that beautiful engine was stuck mated to the horrible IS, while the GS500 was axed (and for that matter the entire GS line).
Lexus GS was the best sedan no one bought.
Everything you needed, nothing you didn’t.