2024 Lexus RC F Reviews, Pricing & Specs

The 2024 Lexus RC F is offered in base trim and with a Performance Package. The U.S. equivalent of the latter is what we drove for this review. All feature the large Lexus spindle grille which looks familiar on its own, maybe a little dated when viewed alongside other contemporary Lexus models. That’s because the RC F is still in its first generation and the 2019 facelift was rather subtle, making this a nearly 10-year-old design. It’s aged well, though.

As one might expect, the sportier RC F coupe is a bit lower and wider than the regular RC. In fact, it varies by just half a centimetre in each direction, but on our test car, the difference was much more noticeable than you’d expect from those ostensibly insignificant numbers. The RC F features all the sports-car styling cues that are classics for a reason: long hood, wide hips, short rear end. The Performance Package’s standard carbon fibre roof and rear wing certainly contribute to the overall impression of race-readiness. We like that these components were less starkly obvious in Caviar, which is new to the performance variant, than they would be on a car painted, say, Ultra White.

19-inch wheels are standard on every 2024 RC F, and each trim gets its own wheel style. Every RC F comes standard with summer tires.

Like its exterior, the RC F’s interior could be called “dated” or “nostalgic,” depending on your perspective. We tend to feel that the glass is half full when we’re piloting a sleek and powerful sports car, and we appreciated the serviceable cabin for its straightforward simplicity. There’s none of the bloat or gadgetry you find in most cars flying off the lots in 2024, and even the many blue “F” accents are dark enough to avoid outright flashiness. We found the front bucket seats to be nicely proportioned, with bolstering in all the right places. Of course, everyone’s built differently, and you’ll want to carefully assess your own comfort level in these seats if the RC F is on your shopping list. All that can be said about the back seats is that they are very tight, but we suspect they exist only as a concession to insurance rates anyway.

Open the hood of the 2024 RC F, and a luminous blue sheen will likely catch your eye. It’s the manifold peeking through from beneath the plastics. There lurks a naturally aspirated 5.0-litre V8 engine. This is the same motor Lexus puts in its LC 500, as well as in hotter variants of the Lexus IS sedan. It’s powered the RC F since its debut for the 2015 model year, and it sets the RC F clearly apart from vehicles like the RC 350 F Sport and its V6 powertrain. Here, the mighty V8 makes 472 horsepower and 395 lb-ft of torque, allowing it to propel the coupe from zero to 100 km/h in fewer than four seconds, and it sounds spectacular while doing it. We only wish the car had a louder exhaust mode option to let us hear even more of that sweet symphony.

Every RC F is rear-wheel-drive (RWD), naturally, with a standard Torsen limited-slip differential, and gets high-performance Brembo brakes. Every RC F variant also comes equipped with an eight-speed automatic transmission. While there is no pure manual option, paddle shifters mounted on the steering wheel do allow for driver input. However, we found the transmission surprisingly slow to respond, requiring us to request shifts earlier than we normally would. Ultimately, it wasn’t worth the hassle, but if we lived with this car full-time and planned to get it out on a track, we absolutely would put in the effort to adapt to its decision-making pace.

The RC F’s luxury coupe nature might sound like a liability for a sports car, but we found it to be a boon. The ride is far more comfortable than we expected, and the standard F-Adaptive Variable Suspension handles bumps admirably. Steering is direct and responsive but stays this side of twitchy, and the cabin is surprisingly quiet. Overall, the RC F manages to offer both comfort and thrills, which is not something we’ve said often.

We’ve established that the RC F is a sports coupe. It therefore has just two doors, so whether you need rear-seat space for passengers or gear, you’ll have to fold the front seats forward to access the back. A simple strap with a magnetic closure keeps the front seatbelts aligned with the headrests. This makes it very easy to move them quickly out of the way, but we did find that the magnet can be a little too eager to give up for our liking, particularly if your driving position requires the seat to be further forward from the seatbelt’s anchor point on the B-pillar. With the seatbelt out of the way, we had only to pull the lever on the shoulder and tilt the seatback forward. This cues the powered seat to slide up to the front of the vehicle, opening space behind. When it’s time for the front seat to resume its position, the memory function replaces it so that no further manual adjustments are necessary.

We did note that the shape and position of the front passenger seat interfered with visibility over the driver’s right shoulder. We found this to be true regardless of where the driver and passenger seats were positioned relative to one another. And, of course, with total interior volume measuring just 2,248 litres, there really isn’t a ton of space to maneuver. Trunk space is certainly nothing spectacular, but it’s also not terrible for this vehicle of this type and purpose. Total cargo volume measures 280 litres, embarrassing next to the BMW M4’s 440 litres but acceptable compared to the Mercedes AMG C 63 coupe’s 297 litres.

It’s clear that in the RC F, the “user interface” of priority is the one between the driver and the car itself. This is not to say that the tech wasn’t thoughtfully designed at some point, but it certainly has not kept pace with the platforms found in other Lexus vehicles in this third decade of the 21st century. Even the 10.3-inch touchscreen proved to be dated in appearance and finicky to operate. Lexus has fortunately done away with the touchpad in most vehicles, but in the RC F (and the RC), it’s still right there in the centre console, taking up space behind the shift lever and forcing you to reach for it any time you want to, for example, return to the main menu. We at CarGurus have been vocal supporters of physical controls because so many people find buttons easier to operate. To be fair, the RC and RC F technically do rely on hard controls, but as it turns out, there’s a line, and it’s this touchpad. So, here’s something we never expected to say: More touchscreen operations, please!

As far as infotainment system and technology features go, both RC F versions sold in Canada are equal. They come standard with two USB ports, a 17-speaker Mark Levinson sound system, wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, and the aforementioned 10.3-inch touchscreen with embedded navigation.

The Lexus Safety System+ 2.5 suite of advanced driver-assistance and safety features is standard on the RC F. This includes active technologies, like a pre-collision system with pedestrian detection and lane-departure alert with interventional steering assist, as well as passive features like intelligent high beams. Adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go capability, known in Lexus parlance as enhanced all-speed dynamic radar cruise control, is also standard, as is enhanced lane-tracing assist, left-turn intersection assist, and more.

The 2024 Lexus RC performed well in crash-testing with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, earning the top score of “Good” in every category evaluated. It also earned the Top Safety Pick+ award several years in a row, though not since 2018. Neither the IIHS nor the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has put the higher-performance and costlier RC F through its paces, but it’s important to note that this is not at all unusual for cars in the RC F’s class or price range. In fact, competitors including the Audi RS 5, BMW M3 and M4, and Mercedes-Benz AMG C63 are in the exact same boat.

The Lexus RC F is fundamentally a GT (for “grand tourer”) coupe. Unfortunately, there just aren’t many of those left in a new-car market that skews heavily toward crossovers and SUVs. The BMW M4 fits the bill, as do the Audi RS 5, the Ford Mustang, and the Nissan Z. This list obviously establishes quite a broad pricing spectrum. Meanwhile, the RC F sits just shy of luxury tax range at $93,976 for the base model including the destination charge and other fees, and $102,876 when the Performance Package is equipped.

The Audi RS 5 starts at roughly $99,000. The BMW M4 Coupe’s base MSRP is roughly $95,000. The Ford Mustang Dark Horse starts at $76,545. And the Nissan Z Nismo starts at $78,846. Dollar for dollar, the RC F with the Performance Package looks expensive. These other models certainly prove that it doesn’t have to cost that much to match or surpass the Lexus’s speed and power specs. But this black-and-white thinking ignores the very real emotional component of enthusiast purchases — and the future of the market, too.

Here’s the thing. Lexus has announced the RC and RC F will be discontinued at the end of the 2025 model year. For the competitors mentioned above, there’s no end in sight. It certainly takes a discerning eye and rare perspective to spend Porsche money — or, for that matter, anything approaching Lexus LC 500 money — on this car instead.

But look at what happened with the Lexus LFA. It, too, debuted on a dated platform. It, too, was rather more expensive than many people could justify at the time. And those who did make the call in the LFA’s favour were rewarded when its value doubled in just 10 years.

At the end of the day, this is a new car review, and it’s not our job to speculate on automotive investments. But in a rarefied market segment, allowing our train of thought to follow a less commonly traveled track feels warranted.

Note: Images show a US model.