This has forever been Lexus’s sweet spot, and also its burden: to send guileless contenders forth from Nagoya, Japan, to upend their haughty German rivals. Victories – a faster lap time here, a stronger financial quarter there, higher residual values almost everywhere – are on the books, but people don’t follow the fight for the TKOs; they want a knockout.

It would appear the 2015 Lexus RC came ready to rumble. Built in part to demonstrate that the Lexus LFA – a $400,000 carbon-fibre scythe judged “perfect” by Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson – was no mere science project, the coupe is the clearest indication yet from Toyota’s luxury subsidiary that it is out for blood. Bavarian blood, specifically. 

Indeed, BMW is never far from an RC driver’s mind or a Lexus product representative’s mouth. The desire to dominate the 4 Series, BMW’s mid-range coupe, seizes the RC so forcefully at times that it succumbs to it. Vaulting ambition makes for high entertainment, though, and the RC can be an engrossing performer.

Lexus begins with strong bones. The RC is built on a chassis that borrows heavily from the GS mid-size and IS compact sedans, each of which have benefited from infusions of high-strength, flex-resistant steel. Though RC shoppers will encounter no fewer than four trim levels, Lexus is crowing loudest about the coupe’s performance variants: the RC 350 F Sport and RC F.

The brand introduced this twosome to global media in New York’s rolling Catskills, where the Monticello Motor Club maintains 4.1 miles of pristine private track amid the birches and pines. Given Lexus’s ambitions, it was a brash piece of location scouting.

Brashness, in fact, is written all over the coupe. Lexus is known (some might say reviled) for conservative styling – a legacy it is trying to shake. But it is a halting evolution. The brand’s new familial “spindle grille” can sometimes read like a flamboyant signature on an otherwise blank canvas. The RC, however, wears the grille like a manga warrior’s facemask, an integral piece of armour. Around it, LEDs and character lines cut and dart across the sheet metal, leaving deep gashes, bulges and creases in their wake. For all the surface drama, the fundamental shape may seem familiar. Is that a hint of BMW 6 Series in the profile? Perhaps a touch of Infiniti Q60? Or maybe Honda Accord Coupe? Yes, yes and yes.

Not to suggest there’s no soul beneath the RC’s skin, but drivers in thrall to the 4 Series’ unadorned, sculpted cool may be unmoved by this competing vision.

The route to Monticello was covered in the range-topping, 467-horsepower RC F. This is the bludgeon of the pair, packing a 5-litre V8 engine that conveys nearly 4,000lbs of sport-luxury tackle down the road. Though all RC Fs are driven by their rear wheels, buyers can sharpen handling by ordering a torque-vectoring differential – part of a $5,500 performance package that also contains a carbon fibre roof and rear wing. Depending on traction and tire load, the system modulates power to the rear wheels, which helps the car dispatch curves more neatly at speed. Such sophistication is imperceptible anywhere other than a track, and even there the standard Torsen limited-slip setup delivers comparable benefits at no additional cost. Know thyself.

Like all mid-level sport-luxury coupes, the RC 350 F Sport and RC F feature multiple driving profiles that alter the cars’ temperament at the twist of a dial. On the wooded parkways east of Monticello, only the sharpest setting, Sport+, summoned the kind of instantaneous thrust expected from a naturally aspirated V8. But the RC F’s engine lag is, paradoxically, by design. Not unlike V8s that can run on four cylinders under light load, the RC F’s unit spins on an Atkinson cycle at cruising speeds – an inheritance from Toyota’s hybrid products. Lexus claims the coupe returns 25mpg on the highway. To rouse the big V8 from its Atkinson-induced stupor, simply apply a heavy right foot.

The engine, mind, is a monster, conveying Corvette-calibre grunts and growls into the cabin. And it has an eager partner in Lexus’s new eight-speed automatic transmission – again, presuming the driver is in Sport+. Otherwise, paddle-pulled shifts register later than drivers of 467hp coupes may have patience for. And given the drum-tight ride firmness that attends Sport+ drives, the paddles may be best reserved for a track day. Such compromises are not asked by the RC F’s Bavarian foil, the M4 – let alone by a BMW 435i coupe fitted with the M Performance package, costing some $10,000 less than an RC F.

Lexus regains its balance in the cabin. Both RC F and RC 350 F Sport have wondrously supportive, gorgeously stitched seats, a direct inheritance of the LFA. The central digital gauges relay such esoterica as yaw and pitch, but the tachometer and inset analogue speedometer remain reassuringly prominent behind their bezels. Excellent seats and legroom continue to the back, though rear passengers above 5ft 4in will find their heads bumping against the liner.

First on the track is the RC 350 F Sport, whose 3.5-litre, 306hp V6 carries over from the IS 350 sedan. Lexus touts the F Sport’s rear-wheel-steer assist, but the benefit is difficult to glean even at the limit. Speaking of limits, those of the RC 350 F Sport’s brakes are exceeded after a couple laps, though the engine remains eager. A bit of brake softness can be tolerated; the track is not the F Sport’s natural arena anyway.

Not so the RC F. At Monticello, the big coupe bounds round bends like a Rottweiler after a squirrel, tongue lolling out of its massive skull. Set to Sport+, the car feels stronger and more sure-footed than on the street, lunging to its 7,300rpm redline while a driver luxuriates in utter comfort. (Attack dog or no, this is still a Lexus.)

The RC F illuminates a hard truth for carmakers who fixate resolutely on a segment. An M4 buyer may never be swayed by the RC F, but that is no knock against Lexus. With some imagination, though, a 467hp heavyweight that coddles its driver could cause night sweats for the Nissan GT-R – a car whose price has ballooned from the RC F’s $65,000-$75,000 range to over $100,000. Disillusioned boy racers who watched their dream car skip orbit might flock to a softer, more luxurious, but still deeply contrarian and howlingly quick coupe – one that throws child-seat anchors in at no charge.

Such potential may not even register with Lexus. More likely, the brand will content itself with whatever pyrrhic victories the RCs score over their German targets, never fully grasping what it means to win.

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