It could be a coincidence, or perhaps Lexus India’s choice of Ooty as the milieu to invite auto hacks to experience the luxury marque’s newly launched line-up in India, had more to do with the onset of the sweltering Indian summer. Whatever the rationale, there’s no better place than a verdant hill station—largely devoid of the accumulated muck and pollution of the cities—to make a compelling case for hybrid vehicles. Even confirmed fans of the internal combustion engine (your writer included)—who routinely poke holes in the ozone layer with their guiltless weekends on the racetrack—would squirm if they had to drive 12-cylinder gas burners through the circuitous roads in the Nilgiris.
But we were conscience calmed
Lexus has been making hybrids since the 1980s, and two of the three vehicles that the Japanese luxury marque has recently launched in India use electricity as their default source of propulsion, turning to petrol only when the driver demands urgency. Both—the ES300h sedan and RX450h (SUV)—are eerily silent. Coasting out of the driveway of our plush pad for the weekend, the Taj Savoy—a gorgeous colonial relic in Ooty—all you can hear, even with the windows down, is the sound of the tyres crunching the gravel. Even the LX450d, the super-size SUV—the only diesel vehicle in the line-up—does a spectacular job of muting its expansive 4.5-litre heart.
Now Lexus may be a late entrant to the luxury auto market in India, but it’s got a surfeit of brand equity on account of direct imports dating back to the 1990s. People expect Lexus cars to be all about craftsmanship, technology and differentiation—both the ES and RX do a spectacular job of living up to those lofty virtues. Cutting-edge hybrid technology, handcrafted leather interiors, the famous soft, light feel to the doors, handling which would give even much smaller cars the blushes, and total isolation from the road and the elements.
The stealthy motion presents a unique challenge: not getting an audible warning, pedestrians are startled when you glide past. The petrol and electric power-plants work together like old friends—watching each other’s back, and standing in for the other whenever required. Lexus’ lineage in hybrids is amply evident in the seamless way in which the motors switch duties. The overall result is that there’s a lightness to these cars that belies their size.
And we purred along softly
Parked outside the McIver villa, a heritage homestay on the outskirts of Coonoor, where we pop by for lunch, the RX makes an arresting figure: with its angular rakish looks, it appears rather aggressive, and the Sport variant that we drove adds to those credentials with sport seats, pedals, even a G-force sensor. You can throw it about—certainly the 300-odd horses provide more than enough gusto to zip around—but really, Lexus cars are prejudiced toward refinement, and the RX is happiest when driven with dignity.
The cabin, as expected, has world-class fit and finish, and the rear seat is the roomiest in this class (a result of Lexus not trying to fit a third row of seats, thankfully). The benefit of it not being a seven-seater means the RX has so much more space to play with: the rear seats are reclinable, and the 453 litres of storage space are adequate for five full-size golf sets. All that cabin insulation wouldn’t be utilised to its potential without a decent stereo, and the 15-speaker Mark Levinson Premium Surround Sound System features a neat trick: it unbundles mp3 files and restores them to full fidelity of the kind you’d expect from a compact disc.
After two days of tooling around the countryside, and done with admiring the city from a car window, it was time to immerse ourselves in Ooty’s multifarious charms, the pick of which was undoubtedly the gorgeous Ooty Golf Club. A full-fledged layout, that can conservatively be described as stunning, and precisely, as magical, this 200-acre expanse of rolling landscape, punctuated by eucalyptuses and Scottish gorse, becomes a hub of activity during the summer months of April and May, when tournaments are held every weekend.
In spite of pairing up with the former top amateur of the country—Coimbatore resident, JJ Chakola—your writer failed to bring home the spoils. Wodehouse once described a player with a flawed golf swing as one in whom ‘enthusiasm outran performance.’ Thankfully, no one could have accused our ride of the same, and the Lexus in the parking lot allowed us to egress with a sliver of dignity. Amazing what cars are capable of these days.
