Where to take a pretty red car in Seattle (Lexus CT Hybrid review)

With a car lover for a husband I have spent countless hours listening to him and his friends talk about this car and that car and why it handles this way and outpowers that way and if only this car had these things that another car has….

This is not how I choose cars.

I like cars that look nice.  I like cars that feel easy to drive.  And I like cars that I do not need to fill with gas that often and still take me to all the places that I like to go.

So when I was loaned a Lexus CT FSPORT Hybrid for a week, I was very pleased at how sweet it looked.  The dashboard was nicely lit and I liked how its look changed for each of the different driving modes (eco, normal and sport). I could easily figure out how to turn the car on, and though I had a little trouble finding the emergency brake (I have short legs) I thought the joystick navigation for the GPS was fun and unlike any other GPS I’ve ever used.

I loved that the car was red.  I think Seattle needs more flashy red cars.  I wanted to see it in front of Target, Pike Place Market, Trader Joe’s and all the bright red signs in Seattle I could think of.  But it was pouring rain so a lot of the pictures were blurry as I rushed to get out of the rain.  My favorite rainy moment was this picture in Fremont because I was carrying cake from Simply Desserts.  It is a lot easier to take a rainy photo when you have cake in your hand and the takeout cake here is one of my favorite Seattle desserts.

The Lexus also drove to Dahlia Bakery and convinced me to get this dessert too!

My kids also drove with me to Tutta Bella for pizza and you know you are in a kid-friendly pizza restaurant when there is a whole bunch of high chairs that greet you on your way in.

They liked driving in this car because I could pull up my energy usage on the nav screen and they cheered when the wheels charged the battery so that kept us all entertained while we zoomed around the city.  They also said they had enough room in the backseat with their booster seats and they took about a million pictures of me driving to get this shot.

I really loved pulling up to my favorite Seattle sandwich spot too in this beautiful red car that just went perfectly with the building.  Slab Sandwiches is one of my favorite places to lunch in Seattle.  There isn’t a lot of space inside, but the day I went I magically got a table!

I had fun driving in sport mode and in the eco mode where I could see the energy from the wheels powering the battery.  I know I drove in normal mode too and I think there was a parking assist feature on this car which was really helpful in some of the tight spots we have to park in Seattle.  And despite driving to all my usual places and doing all my usual things, I didn’t have to fill up my car.  I wasn’t even close.

And I didn’t once have to use this magical button once.  THANK GOODNESS.

This magical button is an SOS button that you can push in the event of an emergency to contact an agent who will determine where the vehicle is, assess the emergency and get help.

I wish life had an SOS button like this, don’t you?

(PS. I was loaned this car for a week for a review but these opinions are my own and I was not required to post or say that it was fun to drive.)
(PPS. if you are not my husband I’m sorry but this car cannot convince you to buy dessert.  If you are my husband it totally brainwashed me.)

Terumi

Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys.  She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live.  She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)