TOUGH CHOICE! 2026 Lexus IS 350 vs 2026 Genesis G70 3.3T

When it comes to value propositions, these are the two best in the luxury sports sedan segment. I'm going to put a link to the Genesis of Lyndon. If you're looking for a car at that dealership, just ask for Clayton. And then also the Lexus of Lyndon's website is in the description down below. If you're looking at the Lexus store, just ask for Brendan. Let's get right into this comparison. Powering the Genesis is a turbo 3.3 liter V6 that goes through an eight-speed automatic. Fuel economy 17 around town, 23 on the highway. With power outputs being 365 horsepower and then 376 pound-feet of torque. Powering the Lexus is a 3.5 liter V6 that goes through a six-speed automatic. It's naturally aspirated. Fuel economy is 19 around town, 26 on the highway, with power outputs being 311 horsepower and then 280 pound-feet of torque. I will say the hoods sound equally high quality when you close them. Anyways, if you're looking for more straight to the point comparisons like this, make sure you subscribe. Sports sedans are supposed to look aggressive and I think both of these do the job well. The Genesis obviously looks kind of more classy. The Lexus is all in on the aggression. I mean, look at the angular headlights, the grill. It's like this giant mouth that's going to eat you. 225 by 40 by 19 for the tire wheel setup in the front of the Genesis. 255 by 35 by 19 in the rear. Now the Lexus is 235 by 40 by 19 in the front and then 265 by 35 by 19 in the rear. So staggered setup and slightly wider tires. Now here's a side profile of the G70. The red brake calipers pop out quite a bit with this blue paint. I don't know if the camera is going to pick it up all that well, but it's very sleek looking. And then here is the Lexus. You can see again, it's just more aggressive with the styling, very sharp lines. Now the G70 has a very wide trunk opening for a sedan and it's pretty practical here in the back. Let's see if there's anything fun happening underneath all these mats. Oh, we got a handle. Spare tire. It's not a big one, but it's got a spare at least. And then this is just manual, it looks like. The Lexus also has a wide opening. That is quite nice. And that's, uh, holy guacamole, this has a lot more to dig under. There we go. We also have a spare. And would you look at that? Also manual. Now so far, I think it's been kind of potato patata with the different angles. I think both the cars look good. When it comes to the back ends, some of you are going to like the Genesis because it's just a cleaner, more simple design. Me, on the other hand, I lean a little bit towards the Lexus because I like the spoiler. I like the aggression, but again, it's going to come down to personal taste. So here's the deal. I don't really fit very well in the back of either of these cars. This segment in general is not a very passenger friendly segment. You get a bigger car if you want passenger space. But anyways, we do have some vents in the back, some USB ports. I love the trim on the seats there in the center. And then this actually has pretty good headroom in the back of the Genesis. Remember what I was saying about not fitting? It's tight. So you get a little storage pocket here in the back of the Lexus. Now one big downside is the little driveline hump there in the center. It's massive. Um, USB ports. And then the seats, again, really nice with the trim. I do feel like the headroom's tighter in the Lexus. Blind spot monitoring with the Genesis. We've got soft touch here and you can see it's perforated down there and then more soft touch. I like the finish and all the controls here. Memory seats. And then here's the front seat with all that nice perforated trim, all of your adjustments and everything on the side. It's got lumbar. Getting in is easy. You just kind of pop down and start it up. Boom. I like the gauge cluster setup having the partial analog element. It's kind of something you don't see a lot in today's world. Steering wheel's really nice. You got perforated trim on either side. It also has a heads up display. You got soft touch trim across the dash. Let's see what the camera system's like in it. So 360. It's definitely good. And then as for the infotainment system, it's not the biggest screen on the planet. It does kind of pop into the dash, but it's pretty easy to use. And then we do have a bunch of physical-ish buttons. Obviously you have a screen for the climate stuff, but some physical controls built in. Heated ventilated seats with this, which we'll probably turn on the ventilated seats. Pretty toasty. Phone charging pad. Got the shifter right there. Drive mode select here. See the auto hold. The camera button. We've got a couple cup holders. USB port. This is nice with the trim on the top. And then that Genesis car's always let you adjust the front passenger seat from the rear, which is funny. We do have a center for this too. Blind spot warning with the Lexus. Again, you've got the soft touch here down below as well. All of our window controls, mirror adjustments. Got the memory seat function. I like the finish on the controls. Not as fancy as the Genesis, but still really nice. And then the seats. I do actually kind of prefer the seats in the Lexus. I think they look a little bit cooler and they're also just a little bit more comfortable. But they're both still good seats. Getting in a little bit harder in the Lexus because the bolster sits up so high. So it's like comfortable to sit in, but you hit it coming in. And then we'll start this up. Oh, it's pretty cool with the gauge cluster there. Full digital. And then yeah, you've got very sporty steering with the paddles and perforated trim and everything. I do like the trim on the dash. That's also nice. Guess what? 360 camera system. And then as for the rest of the infotainment system, it's quick to respond. Just got to click through all the stuff. We've got this little tab here for the climate. Again, they're on a little screen there. Phone charging pad. Got the shifter for the six speed automatic. And then you can see here with the controls for the drive modes, you've got physical buttons for the heated ventilated seats and cup holders. I like this trim. Center console's got a little twinkle. Got a nice trim there. Also across the dash. Just regular rear view mirror. And then we do have a center for this one, just like the Genesis. Got both these sticker for about $58,000, which is affordable in this segment. Let's drive them. So start off in the Lexus first. Then we'll drive the Genesis. By the way, just regular windows in the Lexus. I'll double check if the Genesis has thicker glass. If you're wondering how these are so much more affordable than the competition, I think part of it's just, you know, good old fashioned corporate greed by some of the German automakers. The other part of it comes down to tooling and everything. So this is a very old powertrain setup. NA V6, six speed automatic, reliable as can be. Great powertrain setup if you want a sports sedan to survive the apocalypse. So because it's kind of like an older setup with the, basically the whole car with some modern things added to it, that keeps the price down low. And then you look at the Genesis and it's kind of a similar story. You basically just have a, it's basically, it's smaller than the Kia Stinger, but you basically have a Kia Stinger that they made for years and it just has a Genesis badge on it. So nothing new with both the cars, but it doesn't mean they don't drive well, it doesn't mean they're not good because I feel like cars kind of peaked out. Some cars peaked out early 2000s, some of them 2010s. I'd say sports sedans, it depends. The Germans peaked out early 2000s, but the Japanese and Koreans peaked out in the 2010s with their sports sedans. Because like, remember IS500 for example? Now, I read the comments in the last video, people wanted me to talk a little more about the suspension between both them. And this actually has the sport plus mode, so it's got the adaptive dampers. And what I'll say is, it's pretty comfortable over the bumps and it feels very controllable. Sorry, I'm gonna take this really slow because there's a blind corner. But yeah, as I was saying, it seems like it's a good setup. That's got to be fake. It did like gargles. There's no way the exhaust is making gargles like that. That sounds, it's like when I drove a GTR and it did the same thing and I was like, yeah, that exhaust is not doing that from the factory. They make it sound like it. And the manual, I didn't even want to manual shift it. I just did a couple of things. Not, but again, it's a smooth transmission, but it ain't, it ain't that responsive, you know what I mean? Good power though. Good power. Like it's smooth. It's, it's not, it's not going to knock your socks off with the acceleration. But like for me, this feels more than quick enough. And again, with electric cars being so fast, having a car where I can feel the engine and I can feel the acceleration, sorry, same thing. I'm going to go really slow here. Um, I really liked that. I like that I can, you know, rev up the engine actually to hear the engine. Cause you know, when you have too much horsepower, you don't really get to rev up the engine because you're up to speed just like that. Yeah. Um, handles well, it's pretty comfortable. Even in the sport plus setting, the normal setting, it's a little bit softer. I mean, all these sports settings are pretty, pretty good with the suspension. It's hard to mess up unibody. You know what I mean? Unibody independent suspension. It's, it's easy to make it ride well. So Lexus is old school with some modern tech added to it. And that's probably what a lot of people like about it. Let's go pop into the Genesis. We're gonna do a slightly different driving route because I'm actually taking it to do another comparison, but driving is driving. So let's pop into it. So I checked in the Genesis does have the thicker glass up front. So that is one plus with the Genesis over the Lexus and the glass department. I'm not sure why I feel like I'm one of the only car viewers that ever mentions that. I don't know why nobody else really ever brings it. I mean, at least they, you know, they'll talk about the cabin noise. So I guess that's more important than what the car actually has. Cause some cars, even though they have thicker glass there, they know the door panels and have a lot of insulation. So then they're not that insulated and then some cars won't have the thicker glass, but like BMWs, a lot of them don't have thicker glass, but the door panels have so much insulation and it's good to go. Yeah. So, you know, I'm extra glad I went slow around that corner. Imagine, imagine going fast around that corner and then boom, big old truck. So instantly completely different powertrain, uh, just feeling. So being turbocharged, you've got tons of low end torque. So you're not going to be kind of getting into it as much when you're just driving regularly, which a lot of people appreciate, but it does mean that on a regular basis, you don't feel as much of the engine and being turbocharged, you're just gonna have a different power band, right? And actually aspirated is very linear. Steering's heavy in the sport mode. Lexus was pretty light all the time. The steering is heavier in this. Oh yeah. Big shove. So like it, it comes on with the torque pretty aggressively. It feels like it pulls like a freight train. The Lexus is like smooth sports car acceleration. This is like big luxury yacht. And again, they're, they both drive small, but I've driven a bunch of cars over the years. This has that like huge turbo torque shove just, it just pulls, but yeah, you're going to, you're going to have the power kind of taper off towards the top. Whereas the Lexus is going to pull all the way to red line pretty much because it's naturally aspirated. So you always have to kind of decide which power band you'd like more. This might be a little bit busier at the suspension compared to the Lexus. It's still really good. I like it. Turn signal camera. Yeah. So they always, they always put more tech into the Genesis cars. They always put more tech into them. So that kind of changes things. And again, the pricing's like the same. And when I see what a lot of people look at this comparison as is Genesis, you pay the same price, you get a little bit more tech. Lexus, you pay the price and you get, I would say, you know, the Lexus quality, right? People always talk about, and, and I would, I would say the IS is very high quality because it's, it's older Lexus, right? It's something that we know is quality because people have been able to drive them, put tons of miles on them. The engine's proven. So between the G70 and the IS 350, it's a, it's honestly a tough choice. I really think that just like when I compared the Lexus to the BMW three series, it's really going to depend on what you're looking for out of the car. They're both sporty, but in different ways, the Lexus, I feel like you feel the car more in that one. Whereas this it's fast, it handles well, but it's got so much power that you're not able to feel things as much. But a lot of you're going to hear that and you're like, well, I want something as fast because the Lexus, like I said, it's not slow, but it's also not fast, but that's why I like it. I want to be able to like legally rev the crap out of an engine. You know what I mean? Whereas this it's like up to speed. You know what I mean? And I get it on the highway. You've got a little bit more to go, but Oh, actually the speed limit is 50 here. So we can go even faster, but like you guys get the point. And that's why when I, you know, when it comes to like manual transmission cars, my favorite are all right around that 300 horsepower range for like little sports cars or even, you know, even less than that. Like I love the Mazda Miata. I don't think that you need speed to be fun and sporty. So it'll just kind of, man, it pulled me to the side a little bit. That was weird. It just is going to depend on your preference. Do you want something that's fast or do you want something that you can kind of feel a little bit more, uh, in, in reliability on both these, like I'm, from what I've seen, turbo engines are always going to be a little bit less reliable than NA. That's just how things work. But this V6 seems to be a pretty good engine. I have friends that have the stinger and even higher mileage. It's not a perfect car, but it seems like it's those, those hold up pretty darn well. And since this is basically just a Genesis stinger in a way, I think you'll be pretty good. So let me know which one you choose.