You remember the kid in plane geometry class who couldn’t answer a simple question simply. The weenie who just had to show off his knowledge of solid geometry and, while he was at it, include a rundown of Euclid’s favorite salad ingredients. Well, the Lexus LS600hL, the world’s first $100,000 hybrid, is something like that—a rolling technology show-and-tell that all but shouts, “We did this because we could and you can’t.”

There are more substantive reasons for the appearance of the LS600hL. For one, Lexus wants desperately to appear on the shopping lists of those who buy Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz twelve-bangers (with, respectively, base MSRPs of $119,350, $122,600, and $139,900) and needed a flagship model to accomplish this. For another, Lexus did in fact want to go beyond simply dropping a big engine into its LS460, seeing a clear opportunity to showcase its evolving in-house hybrid expertise (the LS600hL follows the GS450h and the RX400h). Finally, the LS600hL will burnish Toyota’s carefully nurtured image as a green automaker far more effectively than a V-12 would have.

Jim Farley, the new head of the Lexus division, told WINDING ROAD, “This is the most advanced vehicle we know how to build.” Aside from that, which is thought-provoking enough, what does the LS600hL buyer get with this $100,000-plus Lexus that could not be obtained by spending thousands less on the long-wheelbase LS460L? The simple answer is one hell of a hybrid luxury car with a bigger V-8, but like the nerd in geometry class, we just can’t leave it at that.

If you are a guilt-ridden Hollywood airhead who stays up nights worrying about one day having to explain your carbon trail to some higher power, you get the ability to tell Ed Begley, Jr., and Al Gore that you drive a hybrid. And not just any hybrid. Your LS600hL qualifies as a Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle, which should keep the PCPD from placing you on permanent double-secret probation.

If you move among the superrich, you get a car that costs far less than your peer group’s V-12s but that delivers just about the same performance and looks good doing it. Rich people don’t get that way by wasting money, and Lexus can make a strong argument that the LS600hL represents genuine value.

If you like to drive big fast cars, and drive them reasonably hard, you get a car that will do a surprising job of satisfying you. We drove an LS600hL to the edge of tire squeal over the Angeles Crest Highway and never once caused our passenger to squeeze the stuffing out of the grab handle.

If you are of the limousine persuasion and prefer to be driven rather than drive, you can opt for Executive Seating, which reduces rear seating capacity from three to two and includes lifestyle enrichments such as a reclining seat that can massage you. Plus climate and entertainment controls, a DVD player, a wood-trimmed table, and a yes-person who will occupy the seat next to you and applaud your every executive decision (optional at extra cost). The Executive Seating option includes eighteen-inch wheels instead of the standard nineteen-inch units, a move designed to foil any untoward noise and harshness emanating from the lower-profile tires. It also includes the self-parking system you’ve read about—an irritating implication that you are not smart enough to hire a chauffeur who can parallel park.

If you are the geometry-class ass grown to maturity, you put more technology into your garage every night than the Apollo program sent to the moon. If you began on Labor Day listing the contents of the Dr. Lexus Whiz Bag, you would finish up about in time for the year-end secular or religious observance of your choice.

The list of electronic marvels in the LS600hL—from its LED headlights to the warning radar system lodged in both bumpers—includes every system you’ve ever heard of and at least one you haven’t. This is the world’s first Driver Monitor, a camera aimed at your head that can sense when you begin to nod off, for example, at which point it will sound an alarm. Should you slur your words while singing When Irish Eyes Are Smiling on St. Patrick’s Day, the thing may stop the car and call the paddy wagon. The Driver Monitor, predictably, has energized privacy activists, and the ACLU has assigned a task force to study the system.

The combined gasoline/electric horsepower output of the LS600hL is 438, exactly equal to the BMW 760Li but less than the Mercedes-Benz S600 (510) or the Audi A8L (450). At 5.5 seconds, the Lexus about matches the BMW’s 0-60-mile-per-hour time (5.4 seconds) but is slower than the other pair by more than 0.5 seconds. The Lexus misses bettering the S600’s 50-70-mph time by 0.2 seconds but beats the other couple by 0.5 seconds.

The seamless power delivery through the world’s first all-wheel-drive electronically controlled continuously variable transmission (ECVT) is slicker than goose grease on a doorknob (GGOD). If you can feel the eight-speed transmission shift, you sense things the rest of us do not and should seek employment as a soothsayer. Fans of manual shifting can take solace in the up-down slot on the shifter panel, but what you will feel is engine braking, not a gear change.

Except for the blue background on the Lexus “L” logo, the exterior is the same as the LS460L, a car that many observers claim shows a pronounced BMW influence. That may be true, but now the cleanly styled and smoothly unified Lexus body looks more like a BMW ought to look than the current 7-series does.

The refinement of the LS600hL—and it can be said to define that word—is quite in keeping with its price tag. It is so quiet that a person who crawled into the engine compartment and closed the hood would learn that the engine was running only when the heat began to build. When you are seated inside the car, only the moving landscape tips you that the engine is running.

Beginning in midsummer, Lexus expects to sell about one LS600hL per dealer per month, or approximately 2500 per year. We’d bet that the number of buyers who put quietness, smoothness, and reliability ahead of sensory rewards will permit the radical move by Lexus into the $100,000 class to succeed. How radical was the step? In the words of Jim Farley, “We had to shut down our entire IP system for a weekend to add the sixth digit to the price.”