“Your total life image will change,” says Lexus boss.
Despite its best efforts, Lexus has yet to shake off its ‘Toyota-premium’ image that it garnered in the late noughties. As a result, the premium Japanese brand has never managed to garner the same level of regard as its German compatriots, despite pipping them in service and reliability time and time again.
Speaking to Automotive News, the brand’s outgoing managing director Tokuo Fukuichi says that Lexus intends to inject a little more zest and zing into its cars, to give them the same level of desirability as their more established rivals from Germany. “When you’re stuck in traffic,” Fukuichi said, “people look at the driver in the Mercedes as a person who has made it in society. And they will envy you. We haven’t fully achieved that, compared to the German three.”
He spoke to the industry journal at the Japanese launch of the LC Coupe, which serves as a halo-model for the brand, the first for Lexus since the screaming LFA supercar ceased production in 2012. The LC also serves as the springboard for the marque’s leap into desirability, with its cabin and material quality serving to prove Lexus’ right to be taken seriously.
The LC will also be joined by the flagship LS saloon, unveiled at the 2017 Detroit motor show, which Lexus says embodies “a new level of flagship luxury.” No doubt, both these cars are showing off a new side of Lexus, with breathtaking interiors and impressive new drivetrain technologies.
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