April 2001: Britain's "What Car" magazine has awarded its annual prize for car security to Lexus for its IS200 model (right) and to Toyota for its range as a whole. [-Toyota]

2000 July: Lexus (Australia) has released 100 special edition IS200s in yellow. The special edition is said to feature extras worth  au$8K for an all-up r.r.p. of $54,766 for the manual version and $57,046 for the automatic.

The extras include special 17" wheels, spoilers, carbon fibre steering wheel, moon-roof, drilled sports pedals - and the yellow paint.

All IS200s have a 2-litre straight six engine in the front driving the rear wheels (it's aimed at the BMWs you know), with variable valve timing (VVTi), acoustic variable length induction (ACIS) to help low-down torque, and electronic "drive by wire" throttle.

There are dual airbags, force limiting front seat-belt pretensioners, and side airbags on the safety side. All three rear passengers get head-rests and lap-sash seat-belts.

Go to the IS300 and Toyota pages