Toyota’s Global Branding Chief thinks the saloon’s days are numbered.
There have been long, heated discussions about the future of the saloon car in the CarShowroom office, with opinions divided neatly down the middle. While half the editorial team believe that there will always be a place for the saloon car (“because executives will always need something to be chauffeured in”), the other half of the team reckon that it’s only a matter of time before they make way for plusher SUVs and MPVs that offer added practicality.
It seems the latter camp has gained a new supporter, as a high-ranking executive in Toyota feels the same way. Tokyo Fukuichi, the company’s global branding chief, reckons that unless saloons improve drastically in the future, their death to make way for crossovers, SUVs and luxury MPVs is inevitable. He said this to industry journal Automotive News, and was referring to the Lexus brand and its lineup.
His logic is sound: In our market, over 60% of Lexus’ sales were made up of NX and RX SUVs, both of them outselling the compact IS saloon (the brands’ best selling saloon) over threefold. He says that this is due to premium consumers becoming “more casual” in their tastes, forgoing the stodgy, upright image projected by the traditional three-box saloon car. Gone are the days where every luxury saloon driver would be dressed in a three-piece suit; Now, the luxury buyer is just as likely to hop into the drivers’ seat in jeans and a T-shirt as he is a Saville Row suit.
"That reflects a change in the lifestyle and fashion of the typical driver of high-end sedans," Fukuichi stated. "They are becoming more casual and so are sedans." This is one of the reasons why Lexus saloons are now sleeker, especially in profile, moving away from the traditional, upright three-box look that is so typical of saloon cars. This could eventually see a move to a body style more like the Porsche Panamera, Fukuichi-san said, and Lexus may eventually find room in its lineup for an estate.
“Personally, I would like to have a Lexus wagon if we had enough resources. Maybe not as tall as an SUV, but not as short as a wage. There could be some optimised packaging… If we’re going to do it, it can’t just be an ordinary station wagon,” he concluded.”
With more and more buyers flocking to sleeker-looking alternatives, and even SUVs adopting coupe-like rooflines, there’s strong reason to believe that the saloon car is on its way out. While it may be an inevitability, it’s unlikely that it’ll happen anytime soon…
