LEXUS is increasingly winning favour with pubs and leisure giant Whitbread's company car drivers. More than half Whitbread's drivers are choosing to upgrade their vehicles under a policy by which model choice is determined by monthly cost of ownership figures based on contract hire rates from Avis Fleet Services.

Whitbread currently has eight Lexus models on the fleet - three LS400s and five GS300s - one of which is the new Sport version.