Dan Neil on the 2007 Lexus LS 460. Read the entire review — the car parks itself! — but here’s a taste.
The auto-parking feature is a headline-grabbing gimmick in a car run cheerfully amok with them. For your delectation, I submit the count-’em eight-speed automatic transmission, a world first. Finally, relief for the deprived owners of the quaint and rudimentary Mercedes S-class, who get along with a mere seven.
Perhaps your tastes run toward science fiction. The LS 460 L — the long-wheelbase model — offers the optional four-zone climate control, which uses an infrared camera to measure backseat passengers’ body temperature (and, one guesses, to scan for signs of incipient menopause). A fully optioned LS 460 L would also be equipped with 11 air bags (another record!), 19 surround-sound speakers, a 30-gigabit hard drive (storage for 2,000 music files with room to spare for the navigation data), and five powered sunshades, to tick off just a few of the car’s supernumerary excesses.