I can't blame you guys for wanting to hear about the new LS, but my goodness I was hoping to postpone this as long as I could so I could do my very best on it!
But hey, you want what you want and I am willing to get it done right, ASAP. Unlike the others, it will take a bit longer and will be a tad incomplete, since it was just launched this past January in JDM and globally in February and model lineup is not complete (yes, there are more models coming
). I will get started on writing 5LS story.
Hey
@Carmaker1! I voted other (for LFA) before I saw your comment. I'll vote for the IS cars. But as something to kick things off, we should have an interesting topic. I know it may be a small one but can you tell us more about the Lexus Landau? For the sake of warming up, AND, it is a legend. AWD V8 Lexus hatchback by Italdesign Giugiaro? Yeah!
I really don't know much more than you would about this concept, but was very interested in it awhile back and already posted about sometime last year or in 2016. Definitely on this forum in some thread, I think. Yes, sorry about the LFA. I made that decision, as like 5LS, it is not only overwhelming, but it has garnered plenty of exposure from other sources. I will possibly cover the LFA after the UX and 7ES. Thanks!
I want to hear about the 10+ year sh*tstorm the 5LS development must’ve been. :joy:
Seems to me that Toyota cynically approached that programme and canned the original, around 2009. That isn't official, as my means of 5LS info doesn't entirely highlight backroom politics. The stopgap of the 4LS, explains this. For the 2013 MY LS, work was commenced in the second half of 2009, parallel to the 2010MY refresh coming out (styled up to early 2008 in advance).
The MY2013 changes were what you can call, "frozen" in early 2011, before going on sale in the autumn of 2012. The styling aspect of the 2013 LS was approved in Q4 2010 (quoted as fall/winter 2010). Because of that, it is clear to me development of a new platform LS was in limbo between 2009 and 2011, before 200B began in late 2011 for MY17/18.
Toyoda's predecessor Watanabe more than likely approved work on a new LS circa late 2007-2008 and by 2009, an LS redesign was scrapped and postponed mysteriously. Once they committed to doing an intra-generational redesign in 2009, the needed ROI for the facelift expenditures required at most 42 months of sales and the rest was gravy.
Considering that LS development began over 6 years ago, the car was originally planned to debut before the LC500 and fell behind schedule. The fact that the final design was fully engineered by the summer of 2014 is shocking, as that's Lexus making final styling commitments very, VERY early and being confident it won't be dated at intro in 2018. By comparison, the original LS 400 reached that point of development in May 1987 vs release date in September 1989. 28 months vs 44 months (2014-18). Unusual how it took so long.
BTW, thanks!
