Muscle Car Mania Hits Lexus... Or it might hit Japan, if the home office green-lights the V8-powered IS 430

Okay, it¡¦s as old as the 1964 model year, when John Z. DeLorean, Bill Collins and Russ Gee dropped a 389 from the big Bonneville into the smaller Tempest LeMans and created the mighty Pontiac GTO. There are probably earlier examples of this formula but the GTO is the one that gets all the credit. It works because it¡¦s simple¡Xstuff a big engine in a small car, step on the gas and go, leaving a trail of tire smoke.

Now it is Lexus¡¦ turn to apply the formula. Yes, Lexus has gone muscle car. That bastion of muted elegance and understated solemnity wrapped in a cloak of Kaizen is out cruising stoplights looking for fun. The IS 430 is an IS 300 with a big 4.3-liter V8 engine wedged into the relatively small space once occupied by the 3.0-liter straight six.

Two similar cars were done a year ago by Lexus in Germany. Racer-turned-businessman Rod Millen did this project, his fourth for Lexus/Toyota after the Lexus Hot Rod (AW, Sept. 21, 1998), FJ-45 Retro Cruiser (AW, Oct. 18, 1999) and a 500-hp Celica that debuted at the Los Angeles auto show in 2000 (AW, Jan. 17, 2000). Of course there were also Millen¡¦s drives up Pikes Peak in Celicas and Tacomas, the fastest of which still holds the unlimited record of 10:04.

Making the big swap turned out to be far less complicated than you might think. New engine mounts were required, but the engine itself fit without modifying the hood, firewall or any sheetmetal. Only a few peripheral drives had to be remounted. The GS 430¡¦s radiator fit nicely, too. And since the V8 is aluminum and the straight six has an iron block, the two engines weigh almost exactly the same.

With all the changes made to it, the car itself comes in just a little heavier with the V8¡X3459 pounds vs. the stock car¡¦s 3410 pounds.

The new car has a Supra six-speed manual transmission, which required some modifications to the bellhousing to clamp onto the V8. But the Supra shift lever pokes perfectly through the hole in the transmission hump. Driveshaft and halfshafts come from the GS 430 while the differential is from a Supra.

The hardest part of the engine swap was not mechanical but electronic. ¡§The larger challenge was to develop an electronic interface that would allow the V8 engine to work with the manual transmission and IS 300 body¡Xsomething it was never designed to do,¡¨ said Millen.

Luckily, Rod Millen Motorsports has ¡§a guy who¡¦s really good at that sort of thing,¡¨ according to Rod. In reality, Millen¡¦s team of engineers includes Ph.D.s and brainy engineers who spend most of their time working on top-secret projects for the military. Think of Jesse James¡¦ Monster Garage minus the tattoos and piercings and with finite element analysis capability.

The monster IS received other adjustments, too: a more drag-friendly 3.769:1 final drive with a limited-slip differential; 16-way adjustable shocks; big, cross-drilled Brembo ventilated disc brakes with four-piston calipers; Speed Star SSR 18-inch wheels wrapped with Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tires, 225/40R front and 265/35R rear, and with ZR speed ratings; Rhys Millen Racing (Rod¡¦s son) front lip spoiler and side skirts to go with the IS 300 rear spoiler; a Chip Foose black-over-red paint job; and the requisite Mark Levinson stereo, in this case, a 720-watt multichannel system with 20 speakers.

Best of all, it¡¦s a driver, though maybe driver is too tame a word. We got to take the car out at the short, tight Streets of Willow track at Willow Springs, California, and man, oh man. While the balance front and rear is good, all that power in such a light car is just stupid fast, as the kids say. Immediately upon flooring the gas you feel torque that seems about twice that of the IS 300. Millen estimates it is 300-plus lb-ft vs. the IS 300¡¦s 218. We¡¦d add a few pluses to that figure. Horsepower is again estimated, at 340 vs. the IS 300¡¦s 215, but it feels closer to 400. Whatever, the car goes like a whacked cat.

Step on the gas exiting a corner and the rear end steps right on out¡Xnot suddenly and dangerously, but it steps, no doubt about it. It didn¡¦t spin during our drive, but a little more time on the throttle in those corners and the powersliding rear would have passed the front. This would be a great car for a smoky tire burnout contest.

The roar from the new intake and exhaust leaves no doubt as to what is underhood and makes being stealthy at stoplights tricky.

It was crazy fun.

The formula is tried and true: Stick a big V8 under the hood of a small car and voila, you get a tire-smoking grin-maker. Lexus has put a 4.3-liter V8 into an IS 300 chassis. We¡¦re hopeful the IS 430 will see production.

Like any prototype, it still needed some tuning, maybe stiffer springs, shocks, antiroll bars¡Xall that black-art setup stuff that eventually balances the engine¡¦s power with the suspension¡¦s ability to get it to the ground. The final drive could be shorter, the throttle more linear, the clutch smoother and engaged lower in the clutch pedal travel. We are not complaining¡Xin a production car those points would all be addressed.

Yes, production. Right now ¡§there is no plan¡¨ to produce an IS 430, but there could be. Lexus will sell about 14,000 IS 300s this year, down from 20,000 in 2002. The fact that sales are falling suggests Lexus has to do something to boost interest in the IS.

The purpose of this IS 430 exercise is to get executives in Japan to see the light. Or at least feel the horsepower. Strap them behind the wheel for a few laps and they¡¦ll sign anything. But for such a relatively slow seller, it is tough to argue for an IS 430 as a moneymaker, especially after the high price of getting federal approval for all the components.

¡§If there isn¡¦t a strong business case, we probably won¡¦t do it,¡¨ said Bryan Bergsteinsson, former Lexus chief who now heads up training at Toyota. ¡§But part of this is to have fun, goddammit.¡¨

It was rare in this politically correct era to hear a high-ranking auto executive other than Carroll Shelby say that on a press launch. Like the power of the IS 430, it was refreshingly authentic.

Bergsteinsson went on: ¡§The IS 300 has brought us younger buyers, new buyers. Does every iteration of every car line have to make a business case on its own? We sold more GS 300s because we had the GS 430 in the showroom¡Xit¡¦s the umbrella car for the whole line. You could look at a lot of cars that way. We never would have built the Prius. I would disagree that every car has to make a profit.

¡§Performance is an important part of the IS makeup. It continues to bring a younger buyer into Lexus.¡¨

And that may be the strongest argument yet. All those kids driving Scions and sport compacts are eventually going to get jobs and start making money, and they will have to move up somewhere. Many of them have already wandered off to BMW. A car like this would keep them in the Lexus/Toyota fold.

So if this is an exercise in getting the attention of Japanese executives, we say, ¡§Hey Japanese executives, build this car!¡¨ But maybe that¡¦s just because we want to drive it some more.