The Naturally Aspirated Lexus V8 With Yamaha-Tuned Sound And Toyota Reliability
These days, it’s getting harder and harder to find an old-school V8-powered sports car that still has a lot of modern features. The Ford Mustang GT and Dark Horse still exist, with their naturally aspirated Coyote V8s. V8-powered versions of the Chevrolet Corvette and the Dodge Challenger are still widely available, even though they’ve recently been discontinued. There are even the Teutonic muscle car options from brands like Audi and Mercedes-Benz.
But, there’s one option out there that’s a genuine alternative to any of those. It hails from the land of the rising sun, and it offered truly glorious V8 power during a time when its competitors were really trying to move away from that. This Lexus V8 also happens to be one of the best that’s ever been fitted in a Japanese car.
Japanese Automakers Have Been Able To Properly Compete With European And American Brands For Decades
There once was a time when Japan’s major automakers couldn’t compete with European and American brands on a global stage. Those days are long gone, though. Japanese cars compete with European and American ones in pretty much every single market now. That includes sports cars, where Japan has actually built some of the world’s best. Many enthusiasts will point to cars like the Mazda MX-5 Miata and the Nissan 350Z as being prime examples of how great traditional sports cars can be. These cars combined the driving fun and feel of sports cars from the west with the bulletproof reliability the Japanese automakers first made their name on. The result really is the best of both worlds, giving enthusiasts properly fun cars that won’t leave them stranded or burn massive holes in their wallets.
Beyond that, Japanese brands have proven themselves to be great at making other kinds of high-performance cars. Many of Japan’s understated sedans have gained strong reputations for being potent Sleeper Cars. That includes cars like the Toyota Crown and the Toyota Aristo, which had high-performance variants that used the 1JZ and/or 2JZ engines. Again, these provided that best of both worlds of driving fun and bulletproof reliability that made Japan’s best sports cars so good.
Lexus Built A Niche Reputation For Developing Powerful, Understated V8 Performance Monsters
A Japanese brand that’s consistently built amazing performance cars on the quiet is Lexus. The luxury arm of Toyota has done that mostly through building sports cars and sleeper sedans with powerful, analog-feeling V8 engines. The Lexus IS F was the first of those to show up, providing a genuine alternative to a BMW M3, Audi RS4 or Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG sedan of the same era. The GS F later provided a proper contender in the full-sized sedan market, while the IS 500 F Sport Performance reprised the IS F’s positioning after that. There was also the LC 500, a luxurious grand tourer with almost muscle-car like power.
The car we’re going to talk about here is actually not too far off the LC 500, as it’s a luxurious sporty coupe. But it’s smaller than the LC 500, and definitely built more for outright performance.
The Lexus RC F Is A Genuine Alternative To The Germans
The Lexus RC F is a car that often gets forgotten about. That’s even when people talk about Japanese sports cars specifically. It’s not hard to see why it’s flown under the radar. It’s very understated, even for a sports coupe. Unless you really knew what you were looking for, you really wouldn’t be able to tell this car was that special. But, this car is one of the most special street models Lexus has ever produced. A lot of that is because of its engine. It has the 5-liter 2UR-GSE, a member of Toyota’s UR family of V8s. It’s also the same engine that’s powered all the V8-engined sporty Lexus models we’ve mentioned earlier.
It’s that V8 that makes the Lexus RC F a properly compelling case as a sports coupe. The BMW M4 Coupe from the same era had dropped its V8 for a twin-turbocharged inline-6. While a BMW inline-6 does have great character all its own, it has absolutely nothing on the almost muscle-car feel of a naturally aspirated V8.
Yamaha Had A Hand In Developing Its Engine
A big part of the reason why the 2UR-GSE is such a special engine is that parts of it were developed by Yamaha. Specifically, these were the intake and the cylinder heads. The intake components that Yamaha was involved in developing are among the most interesting parts of the engine. The intake chamber and resonator were tuned by Yamaha’s music division, similar to how it worked on the exhaust for the Lexus LFA. Both those parts were tuned to harmonize with the engine as it reached its redline. The result is an absolutely glorious V8 sound right at the top end. That’s something you couldn’t possibly get in a BMW M4 Coupe from the same era.
It’s A Relative Rarity, And That’s Made It Valuable
So, you’ve been convinced about buying one of these cars. How do you get hold of one? Well, not very easily. Firstly, the RC F’s been out of production since 2025. Secondly, it’s relatively rare. Out of the 79,000 Lexus RCs that were built, only around 12,000 of them were RC Fs. Add those two factors together along with its more old-school approach to high performance, and the RC F has started becoming legitimately valuable on the used market. The values of used Lexus ‘F’ models are holding well—the IS F is a strong example of this, with its values going up by 10% since 2019. The RC F has also demonstrated that, as even higher-mileage examples that are in good condition could still cost you more than $35,000. Rarer special editions of the RC F, like the RC F Track Edition, have been known to sell for as much as $78,150. It was never a cheap car in the first place (the MSRP for the RC F Final Edition in the USA was $94,000), but those used prices are still more than what they would be for other similar cars.
The Old-School Lexus V8 Is Dead… On The Streets
Sadly, the old-school, naturally aspirated, pure ICE Lexus is no more. The RC F was gone by the end of 2025, and the LC 500’s production wrapped up in 2026. That means Lexus no longer produces any models powered by the UR family of engines. The 2UR-GSE was the final holdout for that engine family in the Lexus brand, and the LC 500 was its final attempt to stay alive. That is, at least, on the streets. On the track, things are a whole different story.
While this old-school naturally aspirated V8 may not really have a place in Toyota’s or Lexus’s line-up now, there has been one part of their operations where it’s managed to survive. That’s in motorsports. The GT3 version of the RC F, which uses a stroked 5.4-liter version of the 2UR-GSE, still competes in the IMSA Sports Car Championship in North America. It’s actually been a real star among the GT3s there, racking up seriously competitive performances against European and American rivals.
It’s not just in American motorsport where the 2UR-GSE has survived, either. It got a second chance down under, when Toyota decided to enter the V8 Supercars Championship. Toyota decided to fit this engine into the GR Supra, creating a race car so impressive (and dramatically overpowered) that some enthusiasts actually wanted to see a street-legal version of it. The V8 Supercars version of the GR Supra debuted in 2026, and it’s already proven to be a very competitive car in the series.
The UR V8 Still Survives Elsewhere In A Luxury Cruiser
While the old-school V8 may be completely dead in Lexus’s model line-up, the UR family that the 2UR-GSE was a part of has managed one last gasp of survival in a street car. Toyota still uses the more laid-back 2UR-FSE version, in one of the most exclusive luxury cruisers you can buy. That’s the third-generation Toyota Century sedan, a favorite of CEOs and crime bosses alike in Toyota’s native Japan. It uses the 2UR-FSE as part of a hybrid powertrain, replacing the old V12 with a powertrain that produces the same kind of power but in a more efficient way. This hybrid powertrain is actually the same one that used to be in the Lexus LS600h, before the hybrid LS dropped the V8 in favor of a V6 after 2016.
Sources: BMW, Lexus, Toyota
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