By admin 
Lexus unveiled the 2027 IS Special Appearance Package in Miami on August 29, 2026, as the closing stop of a four-city summer program it called the IS 25th Legacy Tour. The car is an IS 350 F SPORT in a new green called Envious, on 19-inch black BBS forged alloy wheels, with black NuLuxe seats, Ultrasuede inserts, green stitching and satin chrome trim. It is limited to 350 units for North America and reaches dealerships later this year. Pricing has not been announced. The release runs to a bullet list, a features table and a corporate boilerplate paragraph, with no executive quoted anywhere in it, which is fair warning of how much is actually new. Set the 2027 package against the 2026 one and the answer is paint.
Read more Watch eyewitness video of Grand Canyon flash flooding
What the 2027 package includes
Every 2027 IS uses the naturally aspirated 3.5-liter V6 rated at 311 hp and 280 lb-ft. Rear-wheel drive gets an eight-speed automatic. All-wheel drive gets a six-speed automatic, which is the same transmission pairing the car has carried for years.
The package bundles equipment that is optional or unavailable elsewhere in the lineup. That includes the Handling Package, with sport-tuned Adaptive Variable Suspension, Drive Mode Select and a Torsen limited-slip rear differential on rear-wheel-drive cars only, and the Technology Package, with Traffic Jam Assist, Lane Change Assist and Front Cross-Traffic Alert. Also standard: triple-beam light-emitting diode (LED) headlamps, a moonroof, Intuitive Parking Assist, Panoramic View Monitor, a power rear sunshade, Mark Levinson audio and a Smart Access Key Card.
Nothing in that list changes how the car drives compared with an IS 350 F SPORT that has the Handling Package checked. The differential, the adaptive dampers and the drive modes are all existing hardware.
It is last year’s package in a different color
Lexus introduced a Special Appearance Package on the 2026 IS when it announced that car’s refresh. It was built on the IS 350 F SPORT trim level. It was limited to 350 units for North America. It came with 19-inch black BBS forged alloy wheels, triple-beam LED headlamps, a moonroof, the Handling Package, the Technology Package, Intuitive Parking Assist, Panoramic View Monitor, Mark Levinson audio and a power rear sunshade.
That is the 2027 list, item for item. The 2026 car wore Hakugin Matte White paint with a white and black interior. The 2027 car wears Envious green with a black interior and green stitching. Lexus describes this year’s seats in more detail, naming Ultrasuede inserts and satin chrome trim, which the 2026 announcement did not spell out. Whether those are additions or simply better copywriting is not clear from either release.
Lexus is open that this is an annual tradition, noting it has offered a special edition or appearance package every year since 2022. What the 25th Legacy Tour framing implies is a milestone car. What arrived is the fifth entry in a series, with the previous year’s specification and a new paint code.
The price question
Lexus has not published a number, and that matters because the 2026 version was expensive. Listed pricing for the 2026 IS ran from $46,795 for the F SPORT Design trim level to $61,385 for the F SPORT Special Appearance Package, both including destination and before options. Dealer listings for all-wheel-drive 2026 Special Appearance Package cars have appeared above $63,000. A 2026 IS 350 F SPORT trim level in rear-wheel drive starts near $49,245 delivered.
Read more Sacramento hot chicken restaurant closes in downtown after one year
So the package carried a premium in the region of $12,000 over the F SPORT it is built on. Lexus deserves the counterargument here, because unlike most appearance packages this one bundles real content. The Handling Package, the Technology Package, Mark Levinson audio, the Panoramic View Monitor and the moonroof are all things a buyer would otherwise pay for. Add them individually and the gap narrows considerably. The BBS forged wheels are also a genuine upgrade rather than a sticker. It is not a decal exercise. It is an option bundle with exclusive paint, and it should be priced and described as one.
The IS was supposed to be dead a year ago
Through 2025, outlet after outlet reported that Lexus would end IS production in November of that year, taking the entire range with it. The IS 500 F SPORT Performance and its 472 hp 5.0-liter V8 got an Ultimate Edition send-off, which usually signals a nameplate’s end. The four-cylinder IS 300 went too. A lineup that offered 13 grades for 2025 came back for 2026 as a single engine in two grades.
That reporting was half right. The V8 died. The IS did not. Lexus gave the car a life-extending refresh for 2026, with a taller grille, 12.3-inch screens replacing an 8-inch unit, a new digital instrument cluster, restyled console and trim, wireless charging and Universal Serial Bus Type-C ports. The underpinnings still date to the 2014 model year, which makes the IS one of the oldest cars in its class and, at this point, the only rear-wheel-drive sedan Lexus sells. The GS is gone, the RC and RC F are gone, the LS was retired with a 250-unit Heritage Edition, and LC 500 production has now ended, taking Lexus’ naturally aspirated V8 with it.
The number Lexus did not put in the release
The IS is having its best year in more than a decade. Lexus sold 2,888 IS sedans in the US in June 2026, an increase of 120.5% over June 2025. Volume through July reached 17,030 units against 11,377 in the same seven months of 2025. April through July each cleared 2,880 units, a monthly level the IS had not reached since 2015. For reference, the IS sold 18,946 units in all of 2024, down 15.9% on the year before.
Some of that is the refresh and the pricing move up. Some of it is timing. The ES, the IS’s showroom neighbor, collapsed during its generational changeover, falling to 3,896 units through June 2026 from 19,181 in the same period a year earlier as the eighth-generation car arrived. Buyers who wanted a Lexus sedan in the first half of 2026 had one obvious choice. Whatever the mix of causes, a car everyone had written off is running near 2,400 units a month, and Lexus chose to mark its 25th year by capping a green version at 350 cars across 245 US dealers, fewer than two per store.
What the release leaves out
There is no manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP), no full specification sheet and no on-sale date beyond later this year. There is no split between rear-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive allocation within the 350 units, which matters because the Torsen limited-slip differential is rear-wheel drive only, so an all-wheel-drive buyer pays for a Handling Package missing its most interesting component. There is no US-versus-Canada breakdown of a North American cap. There is no word on whether the IS gets another generation, and no acknowledgment of the sales figures that are the most interesting fact the car has going for it right now.
What to watch
Pricing is the near-term question, because the 2026 package’s $12,000 premium is the benchmark and Lexus has held the number back. The larger question is what replaces the IS. The LF-ZC concept, shown as a compact electric sedan close in length to the IS, was originally slated for production in 2026 and has been reported since as slipping toward the middle of 2027, and Lexus has not tied it publicly to the IS nameplate. Until something does, a 2014-vintage rear-wheel-drive V6 sedan is Lexus’ only sedan of its kind, and it is selling better than it has in eleven years. That is a stronger 25th-anniversary story than a paint chip.
Read more Capital Dance Project combines dancers, visual artists for unique midtown festival
Copyright 2026 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved
This story was originally published August 31, 2026 at 12:30 PM.