This is Lake Baikal, in Southern Siberia, Russia and it is the largest freshwater lake in the world. Driving on a frozen lake is a unique, unreal experience and the best thing about it is you don’t even need a lot of power to have fun because lack of traction is enormously entertaining on its own. A while ago, Lexus travelled to Siberia to test two of its vehicles on the lake, the RX SUV and the LC coupé. Both cars were driven by professional drift racer Nikita Shikov.
It gets very cold in this part of the world and most of the year the lake is frozen, with freezing depths of 1.5 mt and a temperature of minus 60 degrees celsius. Russia even uses it as an integral part of its road network when it’s frozen.So Lexus took an SUV and a coupé to the lake and I’ll be honest, I’ll just skip the SUV part and get straight to the coupé. I’ll leave some pictures here (excellent photographs, btw) so you can check them out, though.
So the LC is powered by a 464-hp V8 and because it is rear-wheel drive only, it’s a bit of a riot on ice. Shikov said he experienced 280 kph on ice and found the true personality of the car. I’m sure he did. You and I couldn’t do this, that’s for sure. I once had the opportunity to reach 300 kph (186 mph) on ice, I was a passenger of course, and the amount of skills required to keep the car in once piece and going straight was tremendous. You need be very, very good at what you’re doing.
This is a great publicity stunt. I know that we’re going through unusual times and everything is virtual these days but, in my humble opinion, car makers should do this more often.
This post was previously published on my tribe, Game Changers, on Drivetribe
_Flabbergasted LF 