2025 Lexus IS 500 Ultimate Edition Review: Heart of Gold

The Lexus IS 500 boils down to a simple question: how much can one excellent aspect make up for the rest of the package?

We see it everywhere in life. An okay meal saved by an incredible cut of meat. A horror movie’s premise covering for a weak ending (I still haven’t forgiven you, The Babadook). There’s a dating parable I’m not even going to touch.

For the Lexus IS 500, ever since it was launched the hypothesis has always been 5.0L V8 > Everything Else. So what if the underlying platform is a dozen years old? Enthusiasts want flawed charm and Lexus’ most powerful sedan delivers it by the bucket-load.

Or perhaps “wanted”, past-tense, because this 2025 Lexus IS 500 Ultimate Edition represents the end of the line for the muscle-bound four-door. We spent a week with one as a final attempt to solve the equation.

After a handful of years on the market the IS 500 is wrapping up its run as the best-sounding compact sedan with this Ultimate Edition. Limited to 500 units in North America, the Ultimate is a fairly typical run-out special with a handful of visual tweaks and numbered plaques layered on top of the standard car. Going Ultimate means locking in this gray exterior paint—sorry, “Wind”—along with the spindly, 19-inch BBS alloys, with trim-exclusive red Brembo brakes peeking out from behind the spokes. A unique red-and-black interior treatment rounds out this special.

The IS itself isn’t going anywhere; in fact, Lexus is treating this generation to its third facelift for 2026, with a schnoz that’s more Corolla than classy.

I have no such qualms about the current styling. The IS is a handsome looking, classically-proportioned sedan. The low light placement gives it an appropriately aggressive face while the bulging hood hints at additional power. That hockey stick shape ahead of the rear wheels adds forward motion in the profile view while emphasizing the rear-drive nature of the IS. While very specific angles of the rear hint at the “Bangle Butt” of the old E65 BMW 7 Series, taken as a whole it works with the rest of the shape.

If you want a more colorful IS 500, the Ultimate isn’t for you. The monochrome look is the point, with only the red calipers offering a splash of color.

Every single startup, the IS 500 would cast its spell. The glorious rumble on a cold start enveloped the car, a Japanese reminder of that most American of lessons: there’s no replacement for displacement. The IS engine has as much swept volume as that of an M340i and C43 combined, without nary a turbo in sight.

With the headline figures remaining unchanged at 472 horsepower and 395 pound-feet of torque, the IS 500 is quick everywhere. There’s no all-wheel drive like the Germans or even lesser IS models, so it is incredibly easy to keep the traction control light flashing like a pinball high score—or vaporize the 265/19 rear tires. Not that we did that at all…

This is, after all, the same engine found in the LC, otherwise known as one of the best modern cars you can buy. So what holds the IS back? Its dim-witted eight-speed automatic transmission (the LC has its own 10-speed). The eight-speed is fine in isolation and when left to its own devices, but trying to control it is where the problems lie. Even in the Sport S+ drive mode, a pull of either wheel-mounted paddle results in a lackadaisical shift, like the IS 500 has other things it’d rather be doing. It makes it hard to hustle down a twisty road, as the driver is always left second-guessing when to call for a shift.

The IS 500 is also ruinously thirsty. We struggled to do better than 15.3; that’s in mpg as well as L/100 km, if you were wondering where those two scales intersect.

Since the IS 500 ditches all-wheel drive, it’s in fact barely chunkier than an IS 350. What’s 11 pounds (5 kilograms) between friends? 

Remember that the IS 500 is an F Sport Performance model, not a full-blown F. Don’t expect razor-sharp reactions and face-altering grip here. Nonetheless, the 500 finds a nice dynamic balance, with accurate and well-weighted steering. There’s never the sense the car wants to set lap times: if ever there was an eight-tenths sedan, the IS 500 is it. Relax a bit and the car responds in kind, flowing with the road—at least until that transmission short-shifts on you, upsetting the equilibrium. If you plan on having backroad fun, it is required to keep the transmission in manual mode, where you can happily bounce off the limiter if so desired.

Kudos to Lexus: despite the aging platform and big 19-inch BBS alloys, the IS 500 rides with impressive grace. The adaptive suspension runs the gamut, firming up outside of town but maintaining pliancy through the city core. The IS will encounter broken pavement and cruise over it with ease, always displaying tight and consistent body control. In an age where so many (often German) sedans ride too stiffly, this might be the IS 500’s secret weapon, whereas the V8 is the obvious calling card.

But then the front seats ruin the fun. Okay, they’re actually quite good, the faux-leather and Ultrasuede thrones lacking in their range of adjustments but providing excellent bolstering and lower back support. No, it’s the positioning in relation to the steering column that’s the problem. Unless I wanted to adopt a supine driving position, my knee was almost always in contact with the column—and I don’t even have a long inseam!

Have you been thinking about how much you’d like a CD player in your MY2025 vehicle? Well then boy does Lexus have the car for you!

The IS 500 cabin presents something of a conundrum for auto journos: the design is seriously dated at this point, but it also has plenty of physical controls, the sort that we regularly champion. The catch is that all the controls are haphazardly applied, like Homer’s makeup gun. The fiddly CD player controls belong on a Tamagotchi, the main climate control buttons don’t match their gloss-black surroundings, and then Lexus decided temperature adjustments needed touch-sensitive sliders. It’s an ergonomic nightmare, and I haven’t even talked about the touchpad yet.

Beyond the center stack, the rest of the dashboard design is looking dated now, lacking the expressive and visually interesting style of more modern Lexus models (ie. all of them). Lexus calls out the “LFA-inspired” steering wheel, but that center section is still cheap-looking plastic regardless of what it pays homage to. There’s also a dearth of in-cabin storage, and no wireless charger.

Oh boy, Lexus’ old infotainment system is not user-friendly. It’s sluggish and ugly, and feels akin to playing an old, menu-heavy RPG versus a modern video game. There’s Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support, but a) it’s wired and b) I could never get the former to function. The trackpad is a curse.

Don’t expect a head-up display in here, either. While a hybrid analog/digital instrument cluster might seem dated, the design itself is excellent and presents a bit of theater. The audio system is also strong.

Lexus Safety System+ 2.5 is one aspect of the IS experience that is bang up to date. Standard across the board, it includes assists such as a pre-collision system not only with pedestrian sensing but also left-turn junction assist and an emergency maneuver assist. Full-range adaptive cruise control works well, as does the lane-keep assist.

Opting for the Ultimate Edition pushes the IS 500 up into pretty serious money. In America the V8 sedan starts from $60,815 including destination but this model lists for $71,495. Admittedly that rolls in all the extra content of the Premium trim ($65,315), but that’s still a hefty chunk of coin for a unique colorway and smattering of badges.

In Canada, the IS 500 lineup starts with the $79,045 CAD base model (also including destination). Adding the panoramic view monitor and parking assist inflates the sticker by $1,300 CAD, while the sold-out Appearance Package (and its searing yellow paint and matching interior highlights) include the BBS alloys here for another $2,270 CAD. The Ultimate Edition? That’ll be $87,205 CAD, please.

Against the 2025 IS 500 Ultimate Edition a BMW M340i would be quicker, in both a straight line and along your favorite back road. It’ll have a modern interior with modern tech too, and a rear bench that isn’t so punitive. You’d even save money. But that’s missing the point: despite the badge, the IS 500 is about more than big numbers.

The IS 500 felt decidedly old-school when it launched four years ago. Here at the end of 2025 it feels positively ancient, though not all of that is bad. It might wear a Japanese luxury badge, but the IS 500 is a muscle car in the classic sense, barely fitting a bigger engine and letting the rest of the package play second fiddle to it. It’s too flawed to be a widely recognized future classic, but the IS 500 will remain a desirable vehicle for a select few for years to come.

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