Find of the Week: 1998 Toyota Aristo V300

Our Find of the Week this week is a bit of an interesting import. It looks like an average late '90s luxury sedan. But underneath that façade is the heart of a real sports car. It's a 1998 Toyota Aristo.

The second-generation of the Lexus GS arrived in Canada at the end of 1997. It followed up a car that was penned by Italdesign Giugiaro but had a somewhat strange appearance that didn't fit with the rest of the brand's cars. A combination of a strong yen to dollar conversion as well as a starting price that was equal to what the much larger LS cost just a few years before led to lacklustre sales.

The second-gen car was designed in-house. While the styling certainly has some elements that tie it back to its predecessor, the second-gen GS was completely new. It started on a new platform, one also used by the Japan-market Toyota Crown.

Up front, the car got an extra pair of headlights. The quad-light design gave it a family resemblance with the SC coupe. The strange quad-taillight design, though, was solely worn by the GS.

The second-generation car was pitched as being a serious sports sedan. If the LS cars could take the fight to the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, then the GS would bring it to the BMW 5. Though maybe more 525i and 540i, not full-out M5. Still, it was an ambitious target.

To that end, Lexus installed a pair of powerful engines. The GS 300 came with a 3.0L straight six that carried over from the first-gen but was bumped to 225 hp and 225 lb-ft of torque. The more powerful choice was the GS 400 with 300 hp and 310 lb-ft of torque.

But that engine was born as a luxury car engine. It launched in the first-gen LS 400 and was set up to be big and smooth. It did a great job of that, but it wasn't really a sports car engine. If you wanted a 540i, the GS might have offered a touch more power, but it couldn't quite match that car for character.

Enter the Toyota Aristo.

It was developed alongside the Lexus GS because it's the same car. Lexus wasn't sold in Japan at the time, so most models that wore a Lexus badge here wore a Toyota badge there. The Lexus GS was also the Toyota Aristo. Or more precisely, our Lexus GS was actually the Toyota Aristo.

The Aristo came with a pair of engines too. The first one was the same 2JZ-GE inline six that came to North America. The second, though, was a little different: the 2JZ-GTE. That's just one letter of difference between the two engines, but it makes all the difference in the world. The T in GTE stood for Turbocharged. Twin-turbocharged, to be precise.

That engine was born for the first-gen Aristo but you'll probably know it best from the second place it ended up: the fourth-gen (1994-2002) Toyota Supra. The engine was the stuff of street racing legend back in the late 1990s and it can be made even quicker today with more modern upgrades.

Along with the pair of turbos, the 3.0L inline six got oil spray nozzles to improve engine cooling and by 1998 it had variable valve timing. The result was 276 hp and 333 lb-ft of torque. In 1998, though, Japanese automakers were still following the wink, wink, nudge nudge, say no more gentleman's agreement that cars didn't make more than 276 hp. They did.

The twin-turbo engine actually made 321 hp. More than the V8 offered here. This was a real sports car engine. One that could offer real character to big sedan buyers. It has been reported that then Toyota chair Hiroshi Okuda had the V300 twin-turbo Aristo as his personal car.

It's an engine that's extremely popular with aftermarket tuners. New turbos and more boost can double or even triple those power figures. In a sedan that, well, looks kind of boring, that could be one heck of a surprise for anyone near you on an on-ramp. Or at the track.

The autoTRADER.ca Find of the Week this week is a first-year 1998 Toyota Aristo. It's for sale in Vancouver and has just 93,000 km on the fancy Optitron electroluminescent gauges.

It's a Vertex Edition which added on some of the luxury items the Lexus got but the Toyota didn't always have. Like the leather seats. It also gets some options we didn't, like rear-wheel steering. It also has an aftermarket exhaust that will let that inline six rumble.

If you're looking for a luxury sedan with a little more powertrain character and don't mind (or maybe even welcome) a slightly bland exterior, then this 1998 Toyota Aristo V300 could be exactly what you're looking for.