Inside the Lexus ED2 Design Studio in France

Posted by Kevin on June 9th, 2015

BEYOND Magazine has a revealing profile of the Lexus ED2 design studio in France:

ED2 – European Design Development – is the 6,000-square-meter purpose-built home of Lexus’s European design team. Over the building’s three levels, a team of 40 employees, including 22 designers and 10 modelers, is dedicated to developing proposals for car exterior and interior design for Lexus’s design headquarters in Japan.

[General manager Lance] Scott’s team has developed advanced models of the Lexus’s NX, SC, CT, IS and GS cars. The team has also presented competition proposals for the NX and the CT, and the exteriors of the SC and the previous generation GS, which were both selected for production. Its proposal for the IS strongly influenced final production.

The ED2 studio created the LF-SA small car concept shown in Geneva earlier this year, and are one of the few places in the world responsible for future of Lexus vehicle design — really enjoyed learning about their processes and environment.

Read the Lexus ED2 Design Studio Profile in BEYOND Magazine

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Comments
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    Rob Grieveson
  • June 10, 2015
This seems a waste of time and effort, can anyone explain what the designers are trying to achieve with this design? This size car does not fit with the Lexus range and surely a new CT and LS are much more important than playing with a somewhat strange looking vehicle that does not appear to fit into the overall plan.
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    Lexus Cohen
  • June 10, 2015
I really don't like this little car, more Scion than Lexus.
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    Pedro Roldão
  • June 10, 2015
It's a good option for Lexus for European market and probably jdm.
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    Carmaker1
  • June 10, 2015
Doing this does does not really development of second generation CT (ZWA20) nor the next LS. Having 3 global design studios and numerous Lexus Design employees, allows them a lot of room. This just being design study, does not require the same intensive effort and investment that a production model design development programme would.
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    Carmaker1
  • June 10, 2015
Interesting how they talk about ED2 for once, as it's always about Calty it seems. The SC430 of 2001 was one of the first models presented as a production design proposal for final approval, when ED2 opened in 1998. Much of Sotiris Kovos' design for that was reached in 1997, during the last years of first generation SC. That was first shown in October 1999 as the Sports Coupe Concept. I don't believe it couldn't been designed fully at ED2, considering when ED2 opened in 1998. The 120-Series Land Cruiser Prado was designed here back in 1999 (GX470 was in 2000 in Japan), as well as the 3GS (S190) in 2001-2002, the first production L-finesse design. L-finesse was inaugurated back in 2001 as the 3GS design process and development of the 4LS began. 2IS development was well underway by then, reaching styling approval in 2003. The 2IS was designed at Lexus Design Japan studios in Aichi. The current IS reached final design approval well over 4 years ago, as I remember a Lexus executive referring to it being "reached" already back in August 2010 and called "radical". Probably wasn't 100% "final" yet, but likely critical decision making was already happening at ED2 for the design (as hinted at in the article).

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