If we rated tires on tread design, the Nitto Invos would score high. The slashes that crisscross intriguingly through the tread had us envisioning a vicious Star Wars light-saber showdown taking place right there on the edge of the tire.

Unfortunately, the Nittos’ performance was less inspiring. They were second from the bottom in both dry lap time and braking, with both drivers reporting a soft feeling at the limit and that they were difficult to drive precisely because the grip would taper off in a nonlinear fashion. This led to more oversteer than most of the other tires exhibited, and even though they had an average skidpad run (0.91 g), the Invos left both drivers wishing for more grip.

Things were better in the wet, where Geswein ranked the Invos tops for precise responses, tied with the Dunlops and the benchmark Michelins. The tires’ predictability inspired confidence, although their lap time was still exactly in the middle.

Fairly quiet on the street loop, the Invos were below average in the dry and average in the wet, which put them in eighth place. Nitto does offer a higher-performance tire, the NT05, which conceivably could have fared better but is not available in the size specified for our test.