Would suit:
Astronaut's wife with a conscience.
Price on the road:
From £35 485 (about R408 000).
Maximum speed:
198km/h (0-100km/h 7.6sec).
Combined fuel consumption:
8.1 litres/100km/h.
Imagine healthy cigarettes, fat-free foie gras or a 20-year-old single malt whisky that won't make you feel like you'd been scalped the next morning.
Well, here's the automotive equivalent: a great lumbering, high-riding, fast-driving, all-wheel-drive that doesn't guzzle gas and has cleaner exhaust emissions than a Nissan Primera.
Even those with a healthy lack of interest in cars will be aware of Toyota's petrol-electric Prius thanks to the endorsement of various virtuous Hollywood types. Well, such is the unstoppable march of progress that Toyota has figured out how to apply the same technology to that most politically maligned of vehicles, the toff-roader - in this case, the Lexus RX.
And with petrol rapidly approaching "luxury goods" status, the resultant motor is a car whose time has come.
The RX 400h is virtually impossible to distinguish from the RX 300 on which it is based - a discreet lower case "h" on the boot badge is about it. I can't help feeling this is a shame, not just because I've never liked the way the old version looks (like something an astronaut would buy his wife) but they really missed an opportunity to trumpet its green credentials.
I'd guess this is a deliberate ploy by Toyota, stung by criticism of the Prius that, regrettably, looks like a constipated tortoise. As it is, the RX 400h will likely draw as many filthy looks in town as any other fat off-roader and owners will spend half their time explaining that, actually, they aren't responsible for global warming, that guy over there in the Range Rover is.
Driving the RX 400h is an altogether more singular experience. Turn the key and... not a dickie bird. The dash lights up but the engine is silent. Nevertheless, you are ready to go. How come my PC takes so long to get up to speed when this far-more-powerful Lexus does it so quickly?
Press the accelerator and eerily, silently, the Lexus begins to move using only the batteries beneath the rear seats. When you brake there is a distant electrical whirring sound - best described as spaceship-ish - as the batteries charge but until you reach 50km/h and the V6 petrol engine cuts in, the only sound is a faint squeaking of the leather seats.
The floatation-tank sensation is heightened by the ruthless noise-suppression characteristic of all Lexuses, a smooth "stepless" CVT auto transmission and those amniotically cosseting seats - probably the best in the world since Volvo let the penny-pinchers in.
The RX 400h is very sprightly for a two-ton milk float with better acceleration than a standard Alfa GT. The trouble is its weight and height mean it handles like a laden tea clipper in a squall, squatting on its haunches when you accelerate, lurching forwards when you brake and leaning heavily on bends.
Get used to it and you discover that, rather like a Citroën DS, it will keep gripping despite the nautical poses - but it isn't much fun for your passengers. More disconcerting for the driver is the torque steer.
Not since the Focus RS have I driven a car with such a bad dose of directional habdabs - something you would imagine should be easy to cure in a car that can send its power to all wheels.
So, as with the first Prius, the RX 400h is laudable but not without its flaws. Now, if only Toyota's engineers could turn their attention to the distilling process for a few minutes, I'm sure they could eliminate hangovers for ever.