Test drive Lexus RX 1998 - 2003 SUV

Sushi in chocolate

For modern Russian literature, publicist Igor Svinarenko, widely known in narrow circles as a crest, did no less than his friend, Leonid Parfyonov, to create a special broadcasting of NTV reporters. Mr. Pvinarenko Autopilot offered to travel a week on the new Lexus RX300.
I will say right away: I am just a user. Sitt - started - went. He arrived - quit - and forgot to think. Vehicle! Not a man for a car. And the car is for a person. Like this.
 
Once upon a time, thoughts about stamps and foreign cars, about cubes and panels, customs clearance and ABC swarmed in my head. But this is all before meeting with an ideal car. Ideal not in the sense in which you, car fans, thought. And in another: this is a pure idea of \u200b\u200ba car, brought to the point of absurdity. The car as such as a vehicle in a pure form, absolutely devoid of side layers (a toy, prestige, fight against a personal inferiority complex, capvation, self -patient, etc.) Once, having given a car for the service, I received five for temporary use - I mean Vazovskaya. It was a car with noble traces of rust and a broken right seat. It seems that he was born in the era of historical materialism: I went around this killed five, looking at it with great sadness, but I had to go. He sighed - and he went. And here is the funniest result of that experiment: the machine behaved flawlessly all three days that we were together! She properly delivered me from point A to point B, and then both with, and further along the alphabet: the tired, but satisfied to paragraph M returned: and caught himself thinking that in these three days he never thought about this machine! Where to put, how to guard, where to get spare parts and so on. Finally, who and what will think of me when I will drive her spectacularly. Freedom, lightness, serenity - these words come to mind when I recall that perfect machine.
Two -cassette. However, the introduction delayed. The reader was already waiting for the description of enthusiasm for Lexus. Let's go...
I took, therefore, a car that turned out to be a jeep (in the vernacular, unprofessional sense of the word), and plunged into it. Gright, infection! I thought with some concern. Like, is it all mine? First, a love game began - otherwise it cannot be called. Not immediately the pedal to the floor! No. For a long time he twisted the mirrors with a joystick. He opened and closed the windows. He moved the whole seat back and forth, and adjusted his back, and the roller puffed up for the convenience of the lower back: blew in different directions by the air conditioning nozzles, or rather, climate control. He looked around: all such silver, light, buttons stick out from everywhere, some sensors, dials: some strange feeling, some kind of Deja Vue. What? Where? And suddenly I realized what it was inspired by: ancient Japanese tape recorders. It’s like I'm sitting inside a rich two -cassette. The impression was intensified by the music that was going on from all sides. True, it was just a radio-at a 6-and-line, like a cloth, I had nothing to stick at that moment.
Having played enough, I left the Russian courtyard Toyota. The movement on Schepkin Street is one -sided, but the guard did not let me into the right side I needed and two cars knocked somewhere within the course of flow and blocked the passage. I had to turn left and go against all the rules. And at that moment the main feature of this machine opened: it - with me inside - was silently missed, meekly giving way to the road. And they looked at me like losers look at the big boss. A week later, when the dump truck was carelessly cut, I remembered this experience, this subtle sensation with a slight nostalgic sadness: it seems to me that this car was seen by the oncoming drivers of leisure with a busty beauty with advanced pupils, which for some reason decided to give me, although it was, although it was, although I did not ask. But, we note, I could not refuse.
And so, it means that I am going on disgusting Moscow traffic jams. By the way, they are not so annoying if a person has a new machine, and also with an automatic box. And, do not forget, with climate control! You go to yourself slowly, down, in the sense of height, examining the neighbors along the road: here it came to my mind a great thought about how to get rid of traffic jams in Moscow. This can be done with one stroke of the pen! Well, more precisely, two strokes. The first one: prohibit trucks travel around the city differently as in the night. And the second: all these warehouses, where the goods are taken from all sides, let them be open at night! And they will catch an unauthorized dump truck during the day on the garden - and on the penalty of him: they will know, bitch children. Otherwise they drink our blood, nowhere to drive on Lexus ...
The second feature of the car - of those that opened right away, was this: everything is on the nerves! A little who will come from the side, I’m already yelling: where, bitch, you climb! Not even an hour I can wrap my side! After in the mornings, I sent my wife to see if my beauty is worth under the window or already, Tyu -u. Fear - however, virtual: the car, on the one hand, is not mine, but on the other, insured in full - the neighbor caught up. He waited for me to parify near the house, and then came up with a gloomy look and asked: are you not afraid that they would steal? In response, I laughed in his face. However, he continued:
- Do you remember my four?
And what to remember, he is digging in her all weekend, so that she at least somehow keeps up. You can’t look without tears.
-So they stole her yesterday.
Who, poor, was pushing? It turned out some kind of idiot from the neighboring courtyard; There she was found the next day.
I fell asleep that night in a slight excitement, but I slept calmly.
Clinton and Monica. The next day I had a serious business - the presentation of two of my own books. Just at the former VDNH, a book exhibition opened. I went there ... I rushed along the Rostokinsky shaft, and there is a traffic jam, because from the interval between the tram tracks they removed the slabs and the cars were afraid to take this barrier. At first I rushed, I think that here we will use overpassness! But my wife pulled my sleeve:
- Have pity the car, monster!
Well, okay, regretted. For the sake of such a day: I drove up, park, catching the tense views of motorists. They read such a thought: where are you, bastard, have stole so much money? I set the car, I look around in search of my co -author Alfred Koch (we composed a book of vodka box with him). Here he is, suitable with the words:
- And I think: who is going on such a beautiful silver car? And this, it turns out, you!
Oh, how, the person liked it, despite the fact that he himself goes to BMW of some last model there-so healthy, black, looks like a shark.
Well, we went to the stand of our publishing house, presented our book to the public, signed some copies there, and then a proposal to wash this matter comes from the book lovers. Right on the spot. I already took the glass in my hand, but suddenly wondered: how much will the driver of such a car get used at the wheel? In short, I refrained from alcohol ...
I go out, all in such thoughtfulness ... I conquer ... instead of R, I put the pen on D and the bottom with the bottom on some kind of obstacle. Getting swore dirty, I get out and go to see what is it. It turned out that in front of me lay a concrete block, on which I ran slightly with the protection of the crankcase. Dirty, you see, the block with which they had sex, like a Clinton with a monkey, - I will reproduce my thoughts in a softened form. I feel this Carter defense - intact! But somehow he bends strange under his fingers, I never had to experience this. And the thing is that the protection is plastic! From the same material that went to cases for writing machines. Um ... I really did not expect: and this is all with plastic streamlined bumers! In general, it was not for nothing that the tram tracks did not rush for 100 per hour - such a thought flashed.
The pedal horse. But not all in Moscow to dangle. Where will you accelerate here? Where will you rush? By the weekend, I decided to make a rally in the Kaluga region for mushrooms. On Friday, he loaded his family - and go! According to the short piece of the Kyiv highway, from the Moscow Ring Road almost to Vnukov, the road was like to order for a rich fast foreign car: fly - I do not want to. As if you are managing an airplane: everything is so even, straight and not potholes. True, I admit that I did not give more than 140 km/h. And these 140 were given very easily, as if by themselves. Such observation. You press the pedal to the floor, it goes gradually and gently, and closer to the floor suddenly sneaks nervously and turns on, as it were, such a fuss. You break off like a stagnant horse and fly away. Only the horse in such a situation, I personally witnessed, unlike Lexus, he also farts loudly. So, with this pedal, with this light effort, after which the Furious is turned on, the following comparison is turned on: as if you pressed the point G. In other words, I had no doubt that I did not have a feminine lexus.
And here is what is still noticeable on the highway, unlike Moscow, where so, is it so to crawl, there is no difference - the windshield is too cool! I every now and then clung to my forehead for a folded solar visor. Well, purely as in the eight! And the mirror is in the right eye, which is also somehow in Zhigul: in fairness it must be said that in a good sense there was a similarity with the eight: the car seems as easy and maneuverable! For nothing that this is a hefty barn! After it turned out that she was not much heavier than Lada, oddly enough.
Mushrooms, cops and eggs. What else caused me discomfort - light, however, is a bad review in those places where the rear triangles stand, or, as they are called there, such rear windows. They are too small - it is clear that for beauty. Yes, and the door racks are very thick and strongly braked back-in short, a lot is done in order to make it difficult to make the driver a review: but again, if you take into account that drivers are afraid of you like fire, they will shruk themselves, A little blink of a turn signal.
Here you go. I am rushing, then, in Kyiv. The representative piece of the track ended, a simple Russian road has gone. Asphalt, of course. But such, purely ours. And potholes on it, and patches, and bumps, and ribbing. In general, all the bumps were mine. I will not say that it was shaking much, this was not. But the confidence that the car was made under perfect non -Russian roads appeared. The doubt also crept in that, unlike Peugeot, Lexus developers never made cars for Africa, with which we have a lot in common.
Well, I arrived almost to the place. To one where the asphalt, even a badly, ended, and had to be overcome from a half -kilometer of primer. She looked unimportant: two deep ruts went into liquid dirt and were lost in it, catching horror: there is no cable, the tractor is still caught, and what can be thrown out on the tow, and he is reluctant to think about it. Although: we are in a car of increased cross -country! How I forgot! And so: the softness and high cost of the car completely distracted me from the thought that I am almost an all -terrain vehicle. But I remembered this and smiled: now, now I will block the differential, turn on the reduced gear and boldly rinse into this nightmare mud! But it wasn’t there: after five minutes of searching, I realized that there are no such options in this model. Oh how! Well, do not turn! Crossing, I drove into the rut and swam into the swamp: the car wagged to the right, then to the left and, as it were, swam, not listening to the helm. But she swam, except for insignificant wounds, in principle, forward. What was required of her. As a result, I got to the destination. Having accepted the purest village moonshine, which I habitually sprinkled with raw eggs, went to bed. I slept badly. Through a dream, I thought about where and how I would look for in these deaf places of the cop, if suddenly something with the car. But, fortunately, no one was pushing on her there.
... The next day with two buckets of mushrooms - I plunged them into the trunk, opening and closing the door with a special electric engine - we returned to Moscow. A thrill went, a habit arose to the car, I walked 140 and overtook everyone indiscriminately. It was nice, looking at the on -board computer monitor, to realize that the average gasoline consumption is 12 liters per 100 km ...
PARTING. A day later, in Moscow, I went on Lexus for one business meeting, where I had to break people for a discount. He touched - and immediately gave the brakes: well, who drives such a matter on such a car? Eh! He moved to the Niva and went on it in full accordance with the task.
You ask: how did you feel, crossing from such a car to a sort of car? Nothing special. You go to yourself and go. We have no German autobahns here, for which a car with marking the speedometer scale is needed up to 240. We have nowhere to accelerate here before such space speeds. And it hurts is to drive almost a car that has nowhere to disperse. But you can make an impression with it!
And this thing is also important in our life ...
Text Igor Svinarenko, photo Maxim Gudkov

Igor Svinarenko. 46 years. A graduate of Moscow State University. A wide profile journalist, equally successfully writing about politics and wine and women. In 1999, a reporter of the year was awarded the Prize. In the recent past - the editor -in -chief of the Brownie magazine, the special corner of the Kommersant Publishing House. In the present - the publisher of the magazine Bear. The author of several books, the last of which is a box of vodka - is written in collaboration with Alfred Koch.
Lexus RX300. One of the most popular Lexus models in the Russian market. The premiere of a new car with an old index took place at the 2003 Detroit Auto Show. The car is available in two versions: for the American market and for Europe. On cars intended for the Old World, a V-shaped six of 3.0 liters and a capacity of 204 hp is installed. The maximum speed is 200 km/h. Acceleration 0-100 km/h-9.9 sec. Fuel consumption in the city is 16.9 liters. The price in Moscow is from $ 54.9 thousand.

 

Source: "Autopilot"