The Kaizen Factor weblog has been digging deep into Toyota trademarks in the USA, and in the process made an unexpected discovery — Lexus has recently filed applications for both the IS 300 and the RC 300.
This is significant due to the missing h signifier, meaning these trademarks are not just to cover the possibility of Lexus USA importing the IS 300h and RC 300h currently available in other parts of the world.
Joaquin Ruhi at Kaizen Factor believes the new 300 designation could be the 3.0L V6 engine from the 2006 GS 300 updated to the dual Atkinson-to-Otto cycle and electric VVT-iE:
Performance figures for the new [engine] are anybody’s guess at this point, but if we note that the dual cycle + VVTiE enhancements to the 2UR-GSE 5-liter V8 produced a gain of 51 hp and 18 lb/ft of torque, applying those figures to the old 3GR-FSE 3-liter V6’s numbers bring us to 303 hp and 249 lb/ft of torque.
Should the calculations prove correct, this new engine would duplicate the horsepower in the current 3.5L V6 in the IS 350, and sideways moves are not what Lexus needs to do right now. Instead, I would expect the potential RC 300 & IS 300 to show a mild performance boost.
It all makes for a fun discussion, what do you think?
(As for the particulars — the RC 300 trademark number 86429787 was filed on October 14th, 2014 and the IS 300 trademark number 86593239 was filed on April 10th, 2015.)
Source: Kaizen Factor
Discussion