Motor Trend 1998 Import Car Of The Year

For over 20 years, Motor Trend has bestowed the Import Car of the Year award on the automobile that best embodies a significant achievement in design, engineering, innovation, performance, market influence, and value-within its category. Above all, this remarkable import must do so in a way that sets a new high-water mark in the worldwide automotive industry.

The field of ICOY hopefuls includes all new or significantly changed cars and minivans that are EPA classified as imports, and '98 presented a particularly eclectic group. It ranged from autobahn-bred roadsters and cutting-edge performance sedans to high-value family cars and people movers. Also, this was the first year an electric-powered car has been considered for the ICOY award.

From this diverse crowd, we evaluated each vehicle on both its merits and those to which it aspires. Imagine trying to select a single "Athlete of the Year" from the myriad sporting events in which we participate-from billiards to baseball, tennis to team downhill rollerblading-and you get the idea.

This year, the editors of Motor Trend are proud to decorate the new Lexus GS series (the 300 and 400) with our prestigious Import Car of the Year award.

Compromise is a dirty word to designers, but it's a necessary evil in the world of sports/luxury cars. The "C-word" rears its ugly head when competing requirements are in conflict-which is almost constantly when you're trying to design a car that rivals pure sports machines in performance yet soothes the soul like the world's finest luxury sedans. Therefore, like it or not, compromise is unavoidable. Or is it?

On the occasion of the redesign of its GS sedan, Lexus engineers seized the opportunity to buck the system, to develop ways to advance automotive performance on multiple fronts, while making minimal compromises. Of course, compromise will never truly die, but the new Lexus GS series has left it gravely injured.

Far from the pleasant-but-pricey old GS 300 that soldiered on in relative obscurity, the all-new and very Euro-themed '98 GS 300 and GS 400 are Lexus' most important image models-the vital heart of the marque that has for '98 been redefined with a solid dose of performance in both the GS and LS lineups. Through a feat of engineering alchemy that can only be described as monumental, the GS 300 and GS 400 models combine luxury and performance more deftly than ever before. Even more staggering, the new GS delivers its myriad improvements at a price some 25 percent lower than the old car when similarly equipped. That's not just a beautiful thing. It's wholly mind-blowing

For 1998, a new breed of Lexus has been born-designed from its inception to be a high-value, full-luxury sedan that's more than a little wicked. Watch out BMW, move over Mercedes, the Lexus with an attitude has arrived, and the German autobahn will never be the same again. Behold the stunning GS series-Motor Trend's '98 Import Car of the Year.

Operation: Comfort, Performance, ValueIn the nine years since its establishment, the Lexus line has broadened to encompass luxury sedans, sport coupes, and sport/utes, but one class of vehicle that's been conspicuously absent is the true performance sedan. The '98 GS series squarely addresses that omission with two distinct variants that both look-and act-the part of aggressive performance cars. The most impressive part is how they do it in characteristic Lexus style, without sacrifice to luxury or comfort.

The six-cylinder GS 300 (base price $36,800) offers a meaningful step up in size and substance from smaller cars like Lexus' own ES 300, the BMW 3 Series, and Mercedes-Benz C-Class while carrying a sticker price in line with option-heavy versions of those models. The GS 400's $44,800 base price delivers a 300-hp V-8 underhood and intense sport-sedan performance that compares with the best BMW 5 Series and Mercedes-Benz E-Class-but with the added, and very important, dividend of a lower sticker price.