A showy exterior, V-6 power, nimble handling and the lowest starting price tag of any Lexus sedan are proving to be a winning formula for the Lexus IS compact sedan.

Through the first eight months of this calendar year, sales of the IS four door are up a whopping 77 percent from the year-earlier period. In fact, IS sales of 33,427 in the United States so far in calendar 2015 nearly equal all the U.S. sales that the IS had last year.