2020 Lexus GS F Review & FUN POV Drive

This is the 2020 Lexus GSF. It's the definition of a high quality V8 performance luxury sedan. Today, we're going to take a look at all the exterior features, interior features, and go for a super fun test drive and see exactly what this V8 luxury sedan is all about. Let's get started. Now, starting out on the exterior of the GSF, there are actually a couple of changes. You get revised 19-inch wheels, black mirror caps, and black B pillars instead of them being gray. There's no more orange brake calipers, but you can actually get blue brake calipers now. Altogether, I think this is a very sharp design. I feel like it's aggressive. It's got a beefy stance. Up front, you get triple LED, triple beam headlights and the L-themed LED daytime running light. At night, they look great. There's a nice distinction between the headlight and the daytime running light. There's just no fog lights, but you do get a nice beam pattern with these lights. Up front, you get the large Lexus grille. It's got multiple air intakes. To top it off, a carbon fiber lower lip. Now, this paint is the ultrasonic blue mica. I think it pairs well with this Lexus GSF. I feel like it's a pretty paint. It looks good at night and during the daytime. Optional on our GSF, we get the hand-polished 19-inch BBS wheels with this color. It looks great. Plus, you get Brembo brakes and the optional blue brake caliper, like I mentioned. There's even a little vent opening behind those wheels up front. Another nice feature that you don't always see, but on the luxury car, you get power folding mirrors, which are automatic dimming. There are memories and memory settings. They reverse tilt and they project a puddle lamp on the ground. The GSF gives us an adaptive variable suspension to give you the best of both worlds for comfort and performance. We'll talk about that in a little bit. And then coming out the back, you've got some rear haunches that are pretty good size, a carbon fiber rear spoiler, LED taillights that are also L-themed, and of course, Lexus' stacked quad exhaust. Now, even though this is a sport or a luxury performance sedan, you don't lose the practicality. First of all, you've got a touch button with the smart key where you can open the trunk. And then back here, you're going to get about 14 cubic feet, which of course is not as good as some sedans, but for a performance luxury sedan, you don't lose practicality here. As you can see, we've got some decent areas on the side. It goes back a decent a ways. You've got that center pass through right there. You can lower down a little cargo net. There are some tie downs. You can even use that as a hook or for another net. And then under here, you can get an actual jack kit, but no spare tire. There is a tire inflator kit up under there, but there's a little extra storage here. So can't really complain too much for this type of vehicle. Decent practicality. The GSF still gives you the smart key system. It is a nice key fob. It's nothing fancy, but it's got a solid feel to it, and it's relatively small and lightweight. You can three press and hold in order to remote start, and you've got smart key here. You can lock pushing that button, or you can unlock it just with the sensor. And when you take a look at these front seats, these front seats are pretty sweet. You've got the red sport seats with the F emblem on there. They're very stiff seats. They're not the softest, but they are still comfortable. They are only 10-way power adjustable. I wish that they had a four-way lumbar or maybe bolster adjustment, but they're still pretty basic in that regard. But they are heated, ventilated, and have three position memory settings. And then when you look at the rest of the interior, it is certainly not the fanciest for this $89,000 price, but it's still very nice, and it has a really solid quality feel. You get Alcantara trim and black carbon fiber trim pieces as well to really complete the sporty aesthetic and feel in here. And when you take a look at the door, you do have a soft-ish material up above the carbon fiber trim, Alcantara, nice soft right here. And the only thing I would change on this door is to maybe give us a little more of an actual bottle holder, but otherwise, it's a nice area. Now, I'm not going to go through things quite as detailed as I did in my other 2018 GSF review. We've got a leather-wrapped steering wheel. It's not heated, but you've got these large paddle shifters on here. You've got all the controls you need, even some blue stitching on the inside. And then right up above, you have a physical gauge in the middle and on the right, and then you've got all digital on the left. That is actually still a digital tachometer right there, though. This area on the left gives you a good amount of information, and that is the MPGs I've been getting with some mixed driving over 160 miles. Typical trip computer, but you've got this cool F area with the G monitor, even a lap timer. So if you're actually doing performance stuff, you can do that, compass, audio, and then you can go through and change your settings. And then right in front of us, we actually get this optional head-up display. And because I'm still, it doesn't show everything. It's not as in-depth and detailed as some other head-up displays, but you've got your speed. You can see the distance for your radar cruise, and it's still just nice to have, or you can turn it off really quickly. Now the screen is built into the dash. I do like how it is kind of a large hidden screen. You don't really get any glare off of there. This is a 12 and a quarter inch screen. It's really nice size. It's really clear. You still don't have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, actually, but everything is still easy to use. You can have a split screen or you can have all the same information on the screen. It is controlled with this touch pad, which is a little finicky. It takes getting used to. You do have shortcut here and the map shortcut up there. I'd like to see maybe an audio shortcut or a setting shortcut, but on here, you actually get a push button for just going to the radio, media, or seeking over there. And for those of you that want a CD player, you still got it. And the nice thing is you get actual knobs for your volume and tuning knob. The only thing about the bottle holders, that's why I asked about one in the door is because they can block this kind of stuff. You get this dual zone climate control. The buttons have a quality feel. There's nothing cheap about them. Even though this is not the most premium feeling area or looking area, this material is still soft. These knobs feel of high quality, and I'm sure this will last a long time. We even have the Mark Levinson premium audio system, which is optional. 17 speaker, 835 watt with a subwoofer. Sounds great in here. You still get three tier heated and ventilated seats that can be automatic. You can cover up those bottle holders if you want. You still get this nice blue stitching on the shifter right here. You've got a gated pattern shifter. Quickly go over to manual mode. And then for the fun, you can do eco normal. You can have it custom to where you can customize that on your main screen, sport and sport plus. And you can even switch between standard track and slalom for your torque vector and differential. More trim pieces right here. Nice soft Alcantara where you rest your wrist. And this armrest is really nice, large and soft as well. It can slide back or you can lift it up and have a sliding tray inside. A couple USB ports, auxiliary port, 12 volt power outlet, and there's even a light in there. And this is all nicely lined with a soft material. You get an automatic dimming rear view mirror with garage controls, all led interior lights, and then you get a traditional size sunroof up here as well. Now, when you hop inside the back seat of the Lexus GSF, you still get the nice same red and black materials. They're kind of sport bucket seats on the sides and you could technically fit five people, but the middle has a large hump. And when I sit behind myself, I've got a little bit of space. You know, this isn't great space, but it's enough to make this a functional sedan. The door still has nice material. You've got that same Alcantara, the carbon fiber trim pieces and a little storage area. You get AC vents back here and a 12 volt power outlet, but no actual USB charging ports. This middle console is loaded. You've got some pop out cup holders right there. We've got this little soft storage area, a soft armrest and a pretty deep storage bin right in there. Although nothing has changed under the hood for this 2020 GSF, this is still my favorite part about this car because we got a big naturally aspirated five liter V8. And to top it off, it's not only direct injected, but it's also port injected. It's got the D4S technology, which I love from Toyota and Lexus. This engine should be reliable. It's powerful. It's got 467 horsepower, which is a great number, 389 pound feet of torque. The thing about this being naturally aspirated is you're going to have to get all that horsepower out by revving it out to 7,000 RPM. So I like that aspect of it. But still, if you're looking for a low end torque or low range torque type of vehicle, you're going to need to go for a turbo. This gets one transmission option, an eight speed regular automatic transmission. You got paddle shifters with the manual mode on the inside. You get a torque vectoring differential in the back to distribute more torque to one wheel or the other and a limited slip differential. MPGs, 16 city, 24 highway, you probably don't care. Zero to 60, 4.5 seconds. Not the best, but it's still fun and exhilarating. Let's check out that exhaust. All right, everyone, we are taking off on the test drive in the Lexus GSF. Now we're going to start off in normal mode. We'll go through all the drive modes, have some fun with this. I'll tell you what it's like to daily drive it and then get some more fun driving with this thing. So let's get going. And right off the bat, like I said, we are in normal mode. Just go ahead and put the pedal down. And that gets you going real quick. It's got a real nice sound. You've definitely got the synthesized sound coming in and that induction sound. Once you get to like and we'll get through that in a little bit. There is also an active sound control button that defaults to being on. I'll turn that off and on a little bit later so you can try to hear the difference with that. But I've driven the GSF before and I absolutely loved it and I still love it. I don't care that it's not the fastest vehicle that you can buy like this. It doesn't have to be. It's still exhilarating. It's fun to drive. The one thing I wish it could change a little bit, even in sport and sport plus mode, is that the steering could be a little heavier. It's not like sloppy steering, but it's just kind of light. But I mean, it will absolutely react to you when you need it to. It's just not all that weighted for sportiness, no matter what drive mode you're in. Another thing is we've got these nice, large paddle shifters. We will go through those as well. And in normal mode, it is somewhat subdued, especially in the lower RPMs because it keeps you in a higher gear to keep the RPMs low. So if you just kind of get partial throttle, you certainly get some power, but it's not like it's an aggressive downshift until you get into like sport and sport plus mode. In fact, I'm going to put it in sport mode right now. The gauge will change colors, which is also pretty cool. And that was about the same amount of pedal down, but it's certainly got me down into a lower gear and you get that induction sound. Such a fun car to drive. We'll get up to speed in a second. Definitely gets you going pretty quick and it's holding those RPMs pretty well right now. We're still in regular sport mode. It's got a very planted feel. You can definitely buzz around some corners. Still holding those RPMs. Just feels and sounds nice. Now let's go ahead and shift it into manual mode. It's in third gear by default here. And it's not like lightning quick with those paddles. The downshifts are definitely pretty quick. And the brakes on the GSF, you do get some Brembos. So the brakes do well. I believe we got six piston front, four piston in the back, and they do a nice job. The car definitely feels heavy. That's one thing to note. And just for a little bit, let's put it back in normal mode, tone things down a little bit. We'll get up to speed here again soon. But one thing to note is that this does have the full adaptive radar cruise control. It'll take you down to a stop. You also get the lane keeping system and steering assist or lane centering plus the steering assist, but lane centering. If you want, you can turn that off. So if I kind of buzz over, it's going to move me back. It's going to put me back in. It's a little bit kind of like a ping pongy back and forth, sometimes trying to keep you centered. But for the most part, it does a nice job. The radar cruise works well. And I've got a whole detailed video on the Lexus safety system. If you want to check that out with the RX. Now, as far as driving this on a daily basis, I've been driving it to work and I have loved it. It's pretty comfortable in here, even though you've got these sporty seats, these big bolstered seats, they're a little firm, but they're still comfortable. The one thing is that, and you know, there's some give and take with this. There's a little more road noise when you get on a rougher surface like this. You know, when you think of a $90,000 Lexus, you maybe think quieter, but it is the GSF with a big Burley V8, a cool exhaust, and there's going to be more noise that it's going to allow you to hear anyways. But that's one thing to note. If you're looking for a super quiet Lexus, this is not it. But like I said earlier with the steering, the steering's not super heavy, so it's not like laborious to drive this car around. It's rather relaxed and subdued with some undertone aggression just below the surface. So it's a very comfortable car to drive for the most part. The suspension works very well. It's not rough at all. It does good in corners. It does good on rough surfaces. It does good on smooth surfaces. Now I just put it in Sport Plus and it will downshift for you fairly aggressively. Let's go ahead and go. All right, so Active Sound Control is on. Right now you can hear a little more exhaust tone. Now it's off. On. Off. On. Off. I'm going to go ahead and leave it on for a little bit just so there's a little more fun noise in here. Let's say I'm going here and then I slow down, it's going to downshift aggressively. Jeepers. Aggressive downshift. So the Sport Plus really puts you in the fun, in the fun, sporty driving mode. And that speedometer is just fantastic. And I don't care what you say about the GSF. It's not an M, a BMW, M series, M type of car. It's different. It's not an AMG. It's a Lexus F. They have their own mentality, their own attitude. You've got Lexus quality with this VA power. Car just gets under your skin. It's so fun to drive. And it's not so fast that you're just going to be in trouble all the time like that. It's not quite like that. It's just, it's perfect. It's seriously perfect for a luxury sports sedan. All right, everyone. Well, I seriously hope you have enjoyed this video. Overall, I love this car. For the most part, the GSF is everything you'd want in a luxury sports sedan, a performance sedan like this. And it's just a solid car. It's solid quality build, nice interior. Although it is, you know, a little more subdued compared to the car just told me to take a rest. Apparently I'm a little too wild here, but it's not as fancy as some vehicles, not as high tech, but I appreciate that. And I like that. And I love the old fashioned five liter V8. Now leave your comments down below on the GSF. What do you think of the driving dynamics of it? The acceleration, the sound, all that. Let's go ahead and wrap it up. So to wrap things up on this 2020 GSF, it's truly a can't go wrong type of fun, luxury performance sedan. I absolutely love the fact that Lexus is still using a naturally aspirated five liter V8. That sounds great, performs well, even though it doesn't perform as well as some of the small boosted engines. I don't really care what the zero to 60 time is on this car. That's not what this is about. It's got a very solid interior feel. It's got the aggressive design on the outside, whether it's controversial or not. I still think that this car is great. If you want all of the fanciest tech features and the latest gadgets and all of the things that you can possibly get, you're going to have to look elsewhere. But if you want a fun, beefy, burly, luxury sedan, this is a great option. Thank y'all so much for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed this and the test drive with this GSF. Be sure to check out some of these other videos down below. I truly appreciate you watching. 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