With its top raised, the coupe reveals an arching profile that looks aggressive up front but retro in the rear with a round roly-poly rump that vaguely resembles a vintage Porsche 356 Speedster.

With the top dropped, the convertible looks fluid and fast like a racy roadster.

It's a bold design shaded by the stretched wheelbase, a squatty stance and curvaceous skin stretched tautly over exaggerated wheel wells. It's also a dramatic, eye-catching statement that appears quite different from the restrained styling of a typical Lexus sedan.

Up front, the elongated prow projects a dynamic face flashing glints of chrome from triangular headlamp clusters and a center grille in trapezoidal shape underscored by a body-colored air dam studded with articulated halogen foglamps. Two notched lines in the raked hood cut into inboard corners of headlamps to thrust the grille forward and bump the central hood section higher than the flanks. These hard lines also define a pair of sharp-edged shoulders, which are set above flared front wheelwells pegged forward with scant front overhangs.

The arching profile has fluid lines tracing from the aggressive rake of windshield pillars followed across the bowed roof to thin curves of rear pillars that stab into the bubble format of the back deck.

At the tail, a stubby shape integrates multi-lens taillights sculpted as triangles skewed with curves. The thin spoiler, attached at the factory as an option, interrupts curves on the bowed trunk above a thick bumper band in monotone, with chrome-tipped exhaust pipes protruding from both bottom corners.

The hardtop is composed of lightweight aluminum in two segments with a fixed glass rear window. It hinges in the middle and tucks into the trunk with a quick mechanical movement controlled by a console toggle switch. With the top concealed below the trunk's lid, the SC 430 morphs into its sleek roadster-esque posture marked by a high beltline and the hunkered stance with wheels pushed outward to the corners.