After deliberating eight hours, a Texas jury ordered Toyota to pay $242.1 million to compensate a Dallas family involved in a 2016 rear-end collision that seriously injured two children.
The children, aged 3 and 5, were rear-seat occupants in a 2002 Lexus ES300 driven by parents Benjamin and Kristi Reavis on Dallas’ North Central Expressway. While stopped in traffic, a Honda Pilot collided with the rear of the car at a high rate of speed, causing the front seatbacks to collapse. (Read More…)
One of our trio is on its last legs, another is brand new, and the third option is near the middle of its life. They all share V8 power up front, driven wheels at the rear, and midsections full of luxury equipment. Most people avoided them when new, so it should be no problem finding one to burn.
Right?
The Lexus LC 500 is a phenomenal automobile, mainly because it has one of the best interiors I’ve ever plopped myself into, but you don’t see very many on the road. Lexus in on course to sell about 2,000 LCs this year in the United States, which isn’t bad for a vehicle that can be easily optioned into the six-figure range, but that doesn’t make it a high-volume automobile. In fact, it’s actually less common in Europe than a Ferrari 488.
Rarer still will be the LC 500’s new limited variant — the not-so-cleverly named LC Limited Edition. Why Toyota’s luxury arm didn’t decide to dub it the Yellow Edition is beyond us, as that’s the main aspect setting it apart from the rest of its ilk. Doubly confusing is that the model seems to be limited to Europe.
However, based on other colorized LC models cropping up elsewhere, we could be in store for a North American special edition eventually. (Read More…)
Art cars kind of suck. Even though BMW has managed to produce a handful of stellar examples — models enhanced by Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Alexander Calder, and Andy Warhol — plenty of the brand’s artistic liveries have been far less appealing to the layperson.
Other companies have produced art cars as well. Last year, Lexus unveiled an incredible IS sedan covered in 41,999 programmable LEDs that created a perpetually changing and utterly hypnotic visual experience. However, its most recent example left me feeling a little empty inside.
Art is subjective, I know. But, when it’s slathered all over an automobile, you want it to be expressive of the car’s personality — or at least striking in a way that becomes transformative. The LFA Lexus brought to the Total 24 Hours of Spa race this weekend does neither. Frankly, it feels one step removed from purchasing some mass produced vinyl graphics off an online retailer and sticking them wherever. (Read More…)
Long regarded as the pinnacle of worry-free premium transport, the Lexus ES throws off its dowdy clothes for 2019 in favor of a new, sportier look. It’s a makeover shared with its platform-mate, the Toyota Avalon, and the two large sedans both call dibs on the same V6 engine, four-cylinder hybrid powertrain, and eight-speed and continuously variable automatics.
The mission of this ES is not just to compel existing owners to return to the dealer for another go-around. It wants fresh blood — hence the new sheetmetal and addition of an F Sport model. To help keep both sets of buyers in its good books, Lexus hasn’t gone wild with the pricing. One version actually sees a price decrease for 2019. (Read More…)
“We buy year… then we buy mileage… then we buy condition.” That was a favorite axiom of the used-car appraiser at my old Ford dealership. What he meant was this: In the first few years of a car’s life, people will pay more money if it’s a bit newer than a similar model sitting right next to it. Once it’s about five years old, the conversation switches to mileage: you’d rather have a 2012 ECTO-300def with 75,000 miles than a 2014 model with 105,000.
Usually by the time a car reaches the decade mark, and certainly by the fifteenth anniversary, it’s all about condition, condition, condition. Are you in the market for an Eighties Porsche? Condition is king. Are you limited by fate and circumstance to something like a 2005 Ford Focus? Then it’s doubly true.
Which leads us to today’s episode of Ask Jack, in which the person doing the asking is… uh… me.
Last week, a Lexus ES300 caught my eye. Glimmering two-tone Multiple Taupe Metallic paint called out to me, and frameless windows over thin pillars promised stylish and understated luxury. The 300 lettering on the back guaranteed V6 power and pleasant NVH characteristics.
While Lexus hasn’t confirmed anything, there’s growing speculation that the brand’s ES sedan will ultimately replace the GS. The model’s sales have trended downward since 2015, going from 23,117 U.S. deliveries that year to just 7,773 in 2017.
Ouch.
The brand hasn’t announced any plans to update it. Considering the fourth generation has been around since 2011, you’d think Lexus would have said something by now. But the company — like most luxury manufacturers — is preoccupied with moving utility vehicles. There’s now a three-row RX, and the smaller UX should help attract the younger demographic while allowing Lexus to dabble in a subscription-based sales model.
If it succeeds, the IS could be the next vehicle in the brand’s lineup to be tied to a tree and shot. (Read More…)
Ever since Ford announced its abandonment of traditional passenger cars that aren’t the Mustang, automakers have been very clear to specify whether or not they plan to do the same. The majority seem to feel as if cars have a place in the market. That said, very few manufacturers are increasing sedan output when crossovers and sport utilities are presently so lucrative. For example, Lexus owes the majority of its volume to higher-riding liftbacks, but recently made the promise to maintain a diverse production portfolio.
Accounting for roughly one third of its total volume, cars aren’t the brand’s biggest money maker anymore. But Toyota’s luxury arm believes ditching them now would be an imprudent strategy. Perhaps Lexus is keeping an eye on fuel prices, or maybe it just realizes it can’t play the game in the same manner as the already truck-focused Ford. (Read More…)
So far in the Crapwagon Garage QOTD series, we’ve covered hatchbacks, sedans, and pickup trucks. For the fourth installment in the series, we take the best qualities of all three of those previous vehicles.
What do you get when you affix a hatchback to a sedan, and add the covered rear bed area from a truck? A wagon, of course.
Trademark applications provide a very hazy window into the future of an automaker’s lineup, and this one’s no different. On May 7th, Toyota filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for use of the name “LQ” on a motor vehicle.
While it partially fits into the Lexus brand’s naming scheme, the second letter of the name (after L for “luxury”) is meant to designate the style of vehicle. So, just what kind of flagship model could this be? (Read More…)
Sometimes an automaker goes out on a limb and gives consumers what they say they want. Toyota attempted to appease Internet Car Enthusiasts with the GT86, though it didn’t really work. A few years before that sporty coupe debuted, the company tried to woo the traditional sedan consumer with a very special, limited-production model for the Japanese domestic market.
Presenting Origin, by Toyota.
Every large, traditional Toyota and Lexus sedan seems to have hit that point in its lifespan where drastic surgery is needed to keep up with the younger crowd. Were these staid sedans people, they’d be milling about in the seating area of a local plastic surgeon’s office.
The first model to bend to Toyota’s desire for large cars that ooze dignified luxury but are also kind of green (and maybe kind of sporty?) was the 2018 Lexus LS flagship, appearing last year with a new platform and racy sheetmetal. The Avalon and ES will soon follow suit.
By revamping its LS, Lexus hoped to jam the brakes on a sales plunge that began after the recession and only got worse from there. Still, the automaker knew it couldn’t turn back the clock completely. There was a very specific sales goal mentioned during the launch, and it looks like the new LS delivered. Almost perfectly, in fact. (Read More…)
Long the preferred ride of the casual golf membership set, the Lexus ES enjoys a reputation of high reliability and very gradual change. Toss that cred out the window, as the 2019 ES undergoes what’s arguably the most significant revamp in its nearly three-decade-long history.
Revealed Wednesday in Beijing, the new ES rides atop a platform shared with its fellow Kentucky-built stablemate, the Toyota Avalon, and grows in all the time-honored ways. It’s longer, lower, and wider than the outgoing version. More power and more speeds come to the sedan’s sole powertrain, while the body undergoes a transformation that takes years off (the age of its perceived driver).
With this 2019 model, Lexus seems pretty determined to rid the ES of its longstanding image as a staid conveyance for those with high-performing mutual funds. How determined? There’s now, for the first time, an ES F Sport. (Read More…)
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