The annual Pikes Peak International Hill Climb approaches, and thus begins the flood of reveals for the many and varied rides that will attempt the time-trial race. Toyota has already jumped into the fray, confirming that it will again campaign a modified Scion FR-S at Pikes Peak, while Lexus rejoins the festivities with an RC F coupe. (IS F sedans were previously campaigned on the mountain.) Both cars, by the way, are far cooler looking than their pedestrian counterparts.
First up, the Lexus. It’s dubbed the RC F GT concept, but really, it just looks like the RC F GT3 concept Lexus showed at the Geneva auto show this year. Essentially a preview of a GT3 race car, that concept has donated what appears to be, well, itself to the Pikes Peak GT car (note the lack of a “3” in the name). The new racer wears identical fish-scale rainbow livery, but adopts different wheels and a more aggressive aero package. Lexus claims the hill-climb car is 800 pounds lighter than the streetgoing RC F, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be a featherweight; in our testing, the RC F is quite heavy, and even dropping nearly half a ton from our as-tested weight would bring the car down to 3200 pounds or so. Interestingly, the Lexus runs its stock 5.0-liter V-8 and automatic transmission, but both have been slightly retuned for the climb. So it’s heavy and not much more powerful than stock—what’s this Lexus’s secret weapon? Justin Bell, who is signed up to drive.
Next we have the Scion FR-S, which is more or less the same as the car that ran last year, albeit with a bigger turbocharger, improved cooling, a tuned ECU, E85 fuel in the tank, and an updated aero package. Both the Lexus and the Scion will attack Pikes Peak on June 28.
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