"the passionate pursuit of perfection"
We're looking to get a Lexus IS 250 rear wheel drive manual in the matador red, it's not quite perfection but close enough. We're looking to get it before the end of the year but ordering a Lexus is fairly tricky, you just can't order the car it sounds like. It'd be great to get the IS 350 or the 250 with all the bells and whistles but apparently people don't like to make manual cars anymore (nor do people know how to drive them). Supposedly only 1.9% of all Lexus IS's are manual.
The drive is quick, interior is really nice, the technology is slick, the styling is ok, the color is awesome, the gas mileage is great, the reliability record is great, but room for people in the back seat sucks.
The other car that we're looking at is the Mercedes Benz C230 in a manual and in a barolo red. The best thing about the C230 is the styling (and well, availability). The IS trumps the C230 in just about everything else, but styling is pretty important and the differences save for the gas mileage difference (about 9mpg difference) aren't that big.