If you ever wanted to buy a yacht but were worried of getting seasick,
go for a Lexus ES 350 instead…
It is perfect silence… with a downside!
The first thing you notice in a live and running ES 350, rather what you won’t notice, is the sound of the engine. It takes a bit getting used to not looking at the rpm meter to determine if the engine is running idle. The silent cabin is perhaps the most remarkable of the many remarkable features that adorn an ES. It cuts out the road noise, absorbs the bumps and glitches and makes an average road seem like polished glass. The only thing that could give you an occasional jolt of reality is the light jerk of higher gearshifts.
You need to step on it hard – listening hard, too – to actually appreciate the engine sound above the relatively silent air-conditioner. Now, quite unlike the inspiring burble of a BMW, one can’t say the Lexus engine does spill out music to your ears. From somewhere deep in the underbelly rises a softly contained tenor, hesitant to develop into a full-blown symphony. So it’s much better off doing what it does best – remain reticent and be applauded for its magnificent silence. But again, the downside of having too silent an engine is that, on a midsummer afternoon when it’s 38º C outside, you are constantly exposed to the monotonous blowing of the fan, like the desert wind itself. However, the dual-control Air-conditioning is effective enough in the scorching summer sun - so what’s new? It’s a Toyota after all.
If you could bestow a mid-size luxury sedan with a “limousine” tag, this would be it! On the contrary, if you prefer the sporty kind, or have zero-tolerance for a tendency towards over-steering, Lexus was never intended to be your chosen one. Its laid-back character is so deeply ingrained that even when you decide to summon the power it hides, your Lexus ES would take a moment or two, to shrug off its gentleman’s cloak!
If you ever wanted to buy a yacht but were worried of getting seasick, go for a Lexus ES 350 instead. It costs much less and would afford you a luxury cruise along a more comfortable terrain!
