Thirty-five years ago, Lexus set out to disrupt the automotive status quo with the promise of creating the world’s most refined luxury car, together with an unrivalled customer experience that would redefine luxury ownership.
Today, Lexus sets the standard on multiple fronts including award-winning vehicle quality, exquisite craftsmanship, an extensive luxury line-up that meets the diverse needs of customers and a range of pioneering low and zero CO2 tailpipe emission power trains.
The desire to create an elevated ownership experience was declared in the Lexus Covenant, which stated “Lexus will treat each customer as we would a guest in our home.” This meant anticipating their needs in advance with thoughtful consideration — such as courtesy vehicle pickup for servicing, complimentary service loan cars and the like — a precursor to what would become Lexus Encore in Australia.
The Lexus future will be all-electric, expressed through the LF-ZC concept — Lexus Future Zero emission Catalyst. Its bold lines, low body and dynamic proportions explores the striking design freedoms offered with next-generation battery electric vehicle (BEV) architecture.
While future Lexus vehicles inspired by the LF-ZC will drive in silent luxury to redefine refinement, their emotive designs will roar and stir the soul.
The desire to disrupt the automotive industry began in 1983 when then Toyota Motor Corporation president Eiji Toyoda commissioned Circle F: a project to build “a car that is better than the best in the world.”
It was a proclamation for the pursuit of a new excellence. It would summons the collective effort of 60 designers, 1,400 engineers and 2,300 technicians. About 450 test vehicles and 973 prototypes of the 4.0l quad-cam V8 engine were pushed beyond the limit over no less than 4.4-million kilometres of testing to create the first Lexus.
For Flagship 1, and all Lexus projects to follow, the “Yet Philosophy” was implemented — a unique Lexus approach to help inspire imaginative solutions to complex problems, especially when forcing seemingly unrelated or juxtaposed concepts or ideas together. For F1, specifically, a car that is fast yet efficient, refined yet expressive, light yet strong, responsible yet exhilarating, and elegant yet functional.
In January 1989 Flagship 1 came to life when the LS 400 was shown to the world at the North American International Auto Show, and the Lexus brand was born. Today, Lexus is represented in more than 90 countries, winning over more than 10-million customers with a range of refined and stylish luxury sports cars, sedans and SUVs.
Throughout the decades, “disruption” would become synonymous with “innovation”. Lexus was the first luxury brand to take on the challenge of reducing CO2 tailpipe emissions across a range of vehicles through electrified power-train technology.
In 2006 it introduced the Lexus GS 450h — the world’s first hybrid luxury sedan — immediately following it up with the RX 400h, the world’s first luxury hybrid SUV. More than 2-million electrified Lexus vehicles have been delivered worldwide.
In 1999 Lexus luxury became available in playful compact form, the IS 200 sedan arriving with a 2.0l naturally aspirated in-line six-cylinder engine and engaging rear-wheel drive dynamics.
In 2005 the revolutionary LF-A concept showed what a Lexus supercar could look like. It leveraged F1 technology with more than 370kW of power from a naturally aspirated V10 engine of less than 5.0l displacement.
Lexus the disrupter, has achieved a great deal of success in 35 years and plans to continue to reshape personal luxury in the years ahead.
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