Genesis officially its own brand.

RicerX

I gotta chime in a bit on this one considering I heavily cross-shopped the Lexus IS350 F Sport and Q50S, test driving both a couple times before I grabbed my Q50S.

The only Mercedes I have been in is the CLA, and both the Lexus and Infiniti easily hang with that car in terms of refinement, fit, and finish. I will concede that the interior of the Q50 is only slightly the middle of the pack. The Lexus wins here. It's probably not fair that my comparison was a CLA250 (pretty much "base") while I had the sport trims of the Lexus and Infiniti.

The seating position and overall sporty "feel" of the Lexus F Sport is absolutely wonderful. The interior is phenomenal - the LFA gauge setup is Transformers-level slick. The 8 speed auto isn't bad. I drove the Lexus first. After the first test drive in the Lexus I was sure that I was going to buy it, but I had to do my due diligence.

The Q50 has only 28 hp on the Lexus, and maybe 10lb-ft or torque on paper (I can't remember exactly how much)... and I have to attribute the difference in feel to the wheel-tire combo (my test driver had the Rays and Potenzas equipped) and transmission to the massive difference in actual feel - the Q50 feels like a beast compared to the Lexus when putting power to the ground. The Q50 really felt like an M3 would feel against a 335i stock for stock when comparing it to the Lexus. I found the steering to be a bit better on the Lexus (which may have been slight placebo effect due to the sweet F Sport steering wheel), but not enough to compensate for how much more aggressive and overall sporty the Infiniti felt while actually driving.

The full circle comparison comes when I had my first service and got a base Q50a for a loaner. That car feels very cheap inside without a doubt compared to my sport model, and if you were getting your first impression for the model with a base model Q50, I can totally understand feeling like it doesn't compete against the rest of the luxury vehicles. However, equip each competitor similarly (with sport packages and such) and the Q50 is absolutely a competitor inside and out.

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