As a nameplate, Lexus is now old enough to consume alcohol in all fifty states. Make no mistake, though: the brand Lexus has become is not the brand it was perhaps originally intended to be. Toyota and Nissan each launched with a (mostly) clean-sheet big V8 sedan and a warmed-over home-market showroom filler. For Nissan, the lineup was a short-wheelbase version of the all-new “President”, badged Q45, and a long-in-the-tooth Leopard coupe, yclept M30. Toyota introduced its “F1″ global flagship as the Lexus LS400. To keep the new LS from being lonely in the showrooms, a quick nose job was done on a JDM faux-hardtop midsizer, and the ES250 was born.

Perhaps the Japanese thought they could win the “D-class” battle against BMW and Mercedes-Benz as easily as they’d destroyed the British motorcycle industry or humiliated the American attempts to build subcompact cars. It didn’t quite work out that way. The Q45 badge moved to the rather dismal Nissan Cima before completely fading away. The M30 was a sales catastrophe, to put it mildly. While the current LS460 does about the same annual volume in the United States as the Mercedes-Benz S550, it does so with a base price that is almost $23,000 below that of the Benz.

It was the humblest of the original four offerings from Lexus and Infiniti that would go on to conquer, if not the world, then at least the continent of North America. Today, Lexus is one of the top-volume luxury brands in the market. Its killer Camry-derived duo of ES 350 and RX350 perennially occupy the top of their segments’ sales charts, generating over 100,000 sales per year. Lexus is one of the most famous success stories in the industry, but it began with a straight badge-engineering job of a nearly obsolete car.

For many years, Japanese home-market buyers equated “the hardtop look” with prestige and luxury. As a result, nearly every major Japanese sedan sold in the Eighties and Nineties was either a frameless-window car (as was the case with the first-generation Infiniti M45, sold in Japan as the Nissan Cedric) or was available in a more expensive, frameless-window variant (as with the Honda Accord Inspire and Toyota Corona EXIV). In Toyota’s case, the Camry was “upgraded” to become the Toyota Vista, as seen above. The advantages of using the Vista as the second Lexus were obvious. It could easily be made to comply with US regulations and it would be immediately familiar to Toyota owners looking to trade up.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but my family has some history with Lexus ownership in general and ES250 ownership in particular. In the winter of 1989 my father had his Jaguar XJ6 towed out of his garage stall to the dealership for the fourth time in about as many months. I advised that he try a Lexus as a temporary change in pace. I meant that he should buy an LS400, but upon his trip to the dealer he decided that

a) both of the Lexus vehicles were ugly pieces of crap;

b) in which case, the cheaper one would suffice.

And thus the old man acquired a two-tone-blue ES250. He’d never even so much as sat in a Camry, but I had, and I was shocked to see the lack of differentiation between the two. The steering wheel was different, the radio stack was different, and there were better seats in the car. That was it. Other than that, we were looking at a $23,500 variant of a $17,000 Camry V6.

The motor was surprisingly reluctant to rev, given that it was a 2.5L V6. It was also gutless at all revs; I got the somewhat mistaken impression that it was about as quick as my 302-powered Mercury Marquis coupe. On the freeway, it had less mechanical noise than a Camry but a fair bit more wind noise. The steering was loaded with syrup and the brake pedal sank halfway to the floor before providing any effective retardation. On the positive side, the stereo was very good and the interior was clearly screwed together with fastidious attention.

After a few years, the ES became Dad’s “Florida car”. The leather seats cracked, the dash faded to a whiter shade of blue, and the electronics started to quit. In 1994, with 122,000 mostly freeway miles on the odometer, the block cracked and Dad effectively gave the car away. I used to joke that he’d managed to transfer the reliability of his Jags and Bimmers to a Toyota.

The LS400 outsold the ES250 by quite a bit in the two years they were sold together. Toyota got the hint; the Vista became the vastly improved Windom and placing an “L” badge on said Windom yielded the ES300. Customers loved the result and the ES was placed on the road to complete domination. Over the next three generations, the ES/Windom continued to distance itself from the Camry, but the template had been set: everybody from Acura to Lincoln ended up copying Lexus and selling chrome-nose family sedans as entry-level luxury cars. In the case of the Lincoln Zephyr/MKZ, there was a double helping of irony since the Lincoln Versailles had been an unsuccessful riff on the Ford Granada fifteen years before the ES250′s introduction.

Speaking of irony, it’s worth nothing that in 2006, Toyota took the final step and discontinued the Windom nameplate, replacing it with… Lexus ES. It’s been the most successful example of badge-engineering since the half-million-selling ’76 Cutlass, and perhaps the only one where the rebadge turned around and swallowed the original nameplate. The Little Camry That Couldn’t eventually became the Big Lexus That Could.

There are certain phrases that, when heard in the proper context, signal that one has truly arrived in life. Phrases like “your table is waiting,” and “would you like a drink before we take off?” clearly belong in this comforting category. Strangely, however, the phrase “welcome to Beverly Hills, here are the keys to your Lexus IS250C,” does not.

The day before leaving for Southern California, the Oregon skies opened up after a brief pause, blanketing Portland with what locals refer to as “liquid sunshine” [Ed: not that kind of liquid sunshine... we still brew beer the old-fashioned way up here]. Needless to say, a day of plying the sun-soaked Pacific Coast Highway in a convertible of any kind should have felt like a deeply hedonistic event. And given the dearth of convertible options left in today’s market, the IS250C’s premium appeal should have only added to the Angelean fantasy. After all, I’m not back in the Oregon gloom trying to come up with new adjectives to apply to the Sebring Convertible. And yet, strangely, my time in the Lexus IS250C has left so light an impression that the moral clarity of a ‘bring ‘vert review seems almost worth the necessary day of automotive misery.

In any case, the 250C is wholly unworthy of the term “misery.” The 250C is a thoroughly solid attempt at unseating BMW’s 3-series hardtop convertible as the standard-issue conveyance of choice for the country club set, and other wealthy folk who see themselves as too sophisticated for a mid-life-crisis-mobile. And with rear-wheel-drive, a folding hard-top and legitimate room for four, it certainly has the on paper qualities needed to attract this desirable demographic.

Unfortunately, something is lost in translation between the handsome Lexus IS sedan and its coupe-convertible cousin. Where BMW’s convertibles are only barely distinguishable from their handsome coupe cousins by virtue of their delicate C-pillars, the IS-C is a hot mess of unfortunately differentiating elements. The solid C-Pillars which, in IS sedan duty bring the car’s visual heft rearward for more classic proportions, are reduced to thin elements rising from a sloping hump under which the origami top retracts. The chopped roof abandons an awkwardly-proportioned rear deck, while lending neither the sleekness of a true coupe nor the visual coherence of the IS sedan. Though infinitely better-executed than the comparison suggests, the 250C ends up looking distressingly similar to a (Lord forgive me) Pontiac G6 Convertible.

Inside, the 250C makes up for any possible similarities to such unlamented fare by surrounding its occupants with high-quality materials and thoughtful details. Cooled, heated, multi-adjustable seats are comfortable yet supportive enough for mild enthusiasm. Tasteful dark wood veneer compliments the sober interior’s high-quality if wholly uncreative looks. As with other IS models, however, materials (notably those on the instrument panel) can break the quality spell when touched. Luckily (or not), the mass of IP buttons and confusing climate-controls mean you’ll be staying away anyway. Overall, the impression is akin to riding first-class on a regional flight: nice, but special only in comparison to its alternatives.

With the 250C’s plastic key fob secured in a safe pocket, cruising the Pacific coast requires only a press of the starter button, and about 20 seconds of thumbing a switch that sends the three-piece top into hiding behind the rear seats. Visibility goes from “wow, a two-door that needs a back-up camera” to “wide open spaces,” although top-up interior space is better than you’d expect. Needless to say, putting the top back up while sitting in the driver’s seat is a surefire claustrophobia trigger, and is usually accompanied by much (unnecessary) head-ducking.

With the top down, the 250C’s looks improve considerably, but the transformation takes a heavy toll on trunk space. Seriously, a Porsche Cayman offers more usable storage space (ask me how I know…). Lexus’s considerable efforts to ensure a relatively comfortable rear seat space were all for naught, as that space will inevitably be taken up by any baggage that is more than a foot wide. When the newspaper reviews say the 250C fits a golf club bag, they mean it… and even then, some golf bags would be a tight fit.

This lack of compromise is made all the more galling by the fact that the Lexus is otherwise a paragon of well-considered compromise. Top up, the 250-C is coupe-quiet, with only a few faraway creaks and some well-controlled cowl shake betraying its drophead status. Top down, only brisk side winds coming off the ocean stand a chance of disturbing occupants, and even then, only backseat passengers will find cause for complaint. The 2.5 liter V6 is smoother than a freshly chemical-peeled face, and works with the six-speed autobox like they’ve were raised together. Even with the top down though, there’s never a stirring note to be heard from the pair. No matter: despite serving as the de facto coupe version of the IS range, this Lexus isn’t in any danger of being mistaken for a party girl.

For one thing, the 250C is heavy. It’s packed nearly 500 pounds on its transformation from solid sports sedan to Hollywood honey, and can you ever feel it. Literally. Even if you never hoist the IS-C into a corner with unwarranted enthusiasm, you’ll feel a lot of the extra weight each time you open and close its extended doors. And when you do give in to immature instincts, you learn the lesson (specifically, Newton’s laws of motion) quickly. Though the suspension is passably firm, and the steering is surprisingly well-weighted, the IS-C turns slowly and without gusto. And with only 200 horsepower on tap (and, by the seat-of-the-pants measure, much less until you reach 6,400 RPM), the little V6 doesn’t like exiting corners either.

A Lexus that would rather cruise in comfort than tear up a windy road… now you’ve heard it all, right? Once again, the IS250C has a compromise to keep you guessing. With the automatic transmission in “manual” mode, and the dashboard-mounted “sport” button depressed, the Lexus can actually muster enough fun to keep, say, a golf enthusiast engaged for short periods. With better tip-in, and the freedom to shift at will, the V6 spins freely, rising from a muted purr to a slightly tinny thrash. It’s still no corner carver, but when driven purposefully it’s good enough to scare the wife just the right amount on the way to your tee time.

To put it another way, the IS-C’s underpinnings are actually good enough to recommend upgrading to the 300 HP 3.5 liter option. Starting at $44,890, it’s almost exactly the same price as BMW’s stripped 328i Convertible, and loaded with Lexus’s luxury package it’s only a whisker more (and infinitely better-equipped) than a similarly-powered base 335i convertible (although it faces further competition from the Infiniti G Convertible). But this baby version? As tested, with the full luxury package, it still comes in below below $49k… and that’s a stiff price for an underpowered convertible no matter how you cut it.

Maybe it was the too-smooth-for-its-own-good engine. Maybe it was the sea of Maseratis and Astons that roared past the Lexus on the Pacific Coast Highway. Or maybe it was simply that no car can match up to the hedonistic image that Southern California holds for winter-weary Oregonians. Whatever the reason, the IS250C never lived up to the promise of the phrase “a weekend drive down PCH in a Lexus convertible.” For the money, a loaded Volvo C70 offers better looks, better interior flair, and more sense of occasion, without giving up any meaningful RWD benefits. The BMW, though more expensive, is still a BMW. The Lexus is simply too refined, too anodyne and too compromised where it counts, to be worth more than an impulse buy.

Luckily dropping a healthy annual income on a luxury convertible without considering its competitors does make you feel like you’ve arrived. Even if the convertible itself doesn’t.

Budget of Beverly Hills, an independently owned-and-operated franchise of Budget Rent-A-Car gave us a discounted rental rate on the vehicle for this review. And having endured a nightmare experience with other, non-independent Budget shops in the area, we feel obligated to note that, in addition to offering a wide variety of luxury and exotic cars as well as “regular” rentals, Budget of Beverly Hills also provides a very un-Budget-like level of customer service.