CultureMap Auto Awards

Sport Sedan of the Year: 2014 Lexus IS 350 F-Sport breaks BMW stranglehold

Editor's note: In the second annual CultureMap Auto Awards, our automotive correspondents Nic Phillips and Kevin McCauley bestow honors in 10 categories for the top cars and trucks of 2013/2014. Next up:

Sport Sedan of the Year: 2014 Lexus IS 350 F-Sport

The hotly contested sport sedan segment was invented by the venerable BMW 3-series, which dominates the category with its balance of performance, driving dynamics, efficiency and entry-level luxury. Most recently challenged by the Cadillac ATS, last year's pick for outright CultureMap Car of the Year, now Lexus has a legitimate alternative with its all-new 2014 IS 350 F-Sport.

We say legitimate in that the IS isn't new to the market; it's been boring us since 1998 with unremarkable dynamics, forgettable styling and the signature numbness that made the Lexus brand most known for having been no match for the BMW.

Well, forget all that.

This new IS is the first of Lexus' self-proclaimed "car guy" and boss Akio Toyoda's "Wow! I want that!" plan, and it drives like no other sport sedan in its class. With a hefty feeling inspiring confidence, one gets the notion this car is buttoned up nose to tail. Interior fit and finish is on par with the flagship LS sedan, last year's CultureMap Luxury Car of the Year, with an industrial robustness more akin to a 1990s-era Mercedes Benz than the overly plastic finishes of the BMW 3-series.

The IS 350 F-Sport's exclusive Adaptive Variable Suspension and Variable Gear-Ratio Steering paired with a 306-horsepower V6 and smooth shifting eight-speed automatic makes a unique match for the otherwise predictable 3-series.

The IS range starts in mid-$30s, and the IS 350 F-Sport starts in the the mid-$40s — comparable to the Cadillac ATS and BMW 3-series.

Sport Sedan of the Year Runner-up: 2014 Audi A7 TDI

Although the Audi A7 couple-like sedan isn't all that new, it's now available with a fuel-saving TDI clean diesel engine, making it the best-looking, most fun to drive "eco-friendly" sport sedan out. The 3-liter V6 diesel is rated at 240-horsepower and a whopping 428 lb-ft of torque — more torque than even the V10 gas engined Audi R8 supercar.

That monster torque, channeled through an industry-best eight-speed automatic transmission, along with Audi's legendary Quattro all-wheel-drive, gets the full-size beauty to 60 in just 5.5 seconds — about the same as the Lexus IS 350 F-Sport.

The difference? The A7 delivers that acceleration along with a real-world 38 miles-per-gallon highway compared to Lexus' at-best 28 mpg.

Equipped with our recommended options, the eco-motive Audi is a $70,000 luxury sport sedan proposition.

CultureMap Sport Sedan of the Year: 2014 Lexus IS 350 F-Sport.

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Frisco tops 2026 list of U.S. cities with the most remote workers

Photo by Unsplash

Remote work really is all that and a bag of chips.

North Dallas neighbor Frisco has landed atop a 2026 list of U.S. cities with the most remote workers for the second consecutive year, and an up-and-coming McKinney has surged into the top 10.

The personal finance experts at SmartAsset compared the 357 largest U.S. cities based on the percentage of people who work from home, and additionally calculated the mean commute times for non-remote workers in each city. Remote work prevalence was analyzed using U.S. Census data from 2023-2024.

The findings revealed a third of all employees based in Frisco work remotely, with more than 42,000 remote workers as of 2024. However, the city's remote work prevalence is slightly lower than it was the year before.

"Frisco remains the top city for remote work with 33.7 percent of workers aged 16 and up working from home, despite a slight decline from 34.2 percent a year earlier," the report said.

Frisco residents that don't have the privilege of working remotely spend about 27.3 minutes on average commuting to their workplaces, SmartAsset added. Over 63 percent of Frisco workers drive to their jobs, and less than one percent walk to work.

In McKinney, the prevalence of remote workers in the city surged from 24.2 percent in 2023 to 26.7 percent in 2024. The report additionally found there were 32,798 residents working remotely in McKinney in 2024.

McKinney workers also spend more time commuting than Frisco residents do. The average commute time for in-person work in the city added up to 31.8 minutes. Nearly 70 percent of workers drive to their jobs, and .69 percent report that they walk to work.

Nationally, remote work has declined as more employers push return-to-office mandates, according to SmartAsset. But new reports have indicated these mandates are backfiring as more people seek employment at companies that embrace and prioritize flexible working environments.

"Remote work can open up a lot of opportunities for employees, families, and employers alike," the report's author wrote. "However, shifts into remote work may also cause short-term challenges to some communities – such as loss or redistribution of businesses and services used by commuters."

For remote workers in Dallas-Fort Worth, there's a greater financial incentive to work remote than to commute. An April 2025 U.S. Census Bureau study determined remote workers in the Metroplex earn nearly 51 percent more than their commuting counterparts. Dallas-area remote workers made a median income of $77,000 in 2023, compared to $51,100 for other workers.

"Tradeoffs abound, tracking the evolution of work culture and where the spoils of productivity end up can provide guidance to businesses, politicians, job-seekers, and employers alike," the report said.

The top 10 U.S. cities with the most prevalent remote workforces are:

No. 1 – Frisco, Texas
No. 2 – Berkeley, California
No. 3 – Cary, North Carolina
No. 4 – Boulder, Colorado
No. 5 – Scottsdale, Arizona
No. 6 – Arlington, Virginia
No. 7 – McKinney, Texas
No. 8 – Fishers, Indiana
No. 9 – Boca Raton, Florida
No. 10 – Carlsbad, California

frisco mckinney suburbs remote work innovation smartasset