What a long day! Chicago (by way of Gurnee, IL), Indianapolis, Louisville, Bowling Green, Nashville, Chatanooga, Atlanta, Macon, Valdosta and Jacksonville in one day. Started out at the dealer north of Chicago at 10 AM. Go to set up Valentine 1 and find that the cord is toast. I knew I was in trouble when I noticed that. Navigation worked well though I only had the midwest disc. Drove straight through all day. Got all the way to Macon, GA where I got tagged for 93 in a 70 zone, ouch. Back on it and finally home at 3:30 AM.

Overall impression coming from a GS400 owner:
Quite a tad tighter interior but so much more connected to driver. Feels a bit like I've gone from the sedan world back to the sportscar days of my Supras. Think left lane and the car goes there.

The car feels like its a bit faster than the GS but it was hard to tell by how much on the ride home. I only knew the difference when I raced my brother's 2003 E500 which has been proven to be an exact match for my GS400. Well its no match for the C32. If conditions allowed (on a closed course with professional drivers) the C32 would put bus lengths on the E500 from 30 to 100+.

Back to the comparo:
Less Luxury items but way racier feel.

Much more of hard surfaces and a lot less cush in the cabin and the same goes for handling-much tauter (is that how you spell that word?)

Number of storage areas similar but each about 40% smaller except two-tier glovebox which is a tad bigger

"Premium stereo' sounds pretty good but needs some sort of tuning to match clarity of Lexus. May be an issue of higher road noise. It seems to take an extra 5 seconds of listening to decifer what the song is on any given radio channel.

Nice textured aluminum touches throughout cabin

Transmission is smooth and quick shifting

Forgot to add that rear seat leg/ shoulder room is only maybe about 75% of the GS400's but I'm 6' 3" and when I pulled the driver's seat all the way up to where my knees touched I could fit 6' 1" salesman in behind me.

Will take time to adjust to Germanic controls, buttons having been in Japanese cockpits for the last decade.

Quite a bit more misc. noises coming from tires, brakes (possibly warped rear rotors?), suspension (sounds like springs compressing and squeaking under load, apparantly has common bushing problem and needs a swap to 03 bushings).

The supercharged v6 feels and sounds like it works much harder than the V8 in the Lexus. Mashing the go pedal in the Lexus doesn't give one the feeling that you're taking the life off of the engine. Not quite so in the Benz where its clearly exhirting itself and somehow comes away feeling less durable in the process. But hey, its under warranty, so that pedal is hitting the floorboard with abandon.

This particular example is Obsidian Black ext. with charcoal interior and dark blue seat inserts. It had 8,600 miles on it when I got it yesterday and now has close to 10,000. The front passenger seat, rear seat and trunk do not appear to have EVER been used. Seems brand new in that regard. The engine bay is pristine.

All in all I'm very impressed and except the compromises that come with the performance gains. Now where are all of those M3's, N/A 996s, C5's and old RT/10 Vipers hiding?

Kevin