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http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-shows/features/a27888/how-akio-got-his-groove-back/
With the debut of the 2017 Lexus LC500 at the Detroit Auto Show, Toyota Motor Company President and CEO Akio Toyoda showed us the kind of leader he really is.
The man is many things. He is the direct descendant of the man who founded the largest automaker in the world. He is the president and CEO of that corporation. He leads more than three hundred thousand employees. His power extends beyond the automotive sphere; when he told the Financial Times of London that Toyota would remain "a truly British company" even if the United Kingdom were to exit the European Union, the press immediately described it as a blow to the Eurocentric ambitions of David Cameron, the British prime minister.
The man is many things. Yet as the man stepped onto the stage at the NAIAS yesterday, he chose to describe himself as the "master driver" for the Lexus brand. A brief video montage flashed by, showing Akio Toyoda donning his Nomex suit and helmet to drive a variety of dedicated race cars and Lexus prototypes. Then it was time for the man to speak. Which he did, in English that was correct and conversational, on a subject that was dear to his heart.
Detroit press conferences are typically opportunities for chief executives and company spokespeople to recount their successes in terms ranging from the merely boastful to the unpleasantly hubristic. Yet Toyoda, at the helm of the world's most successful car company by right of both birth and demonstrated ability, chose to exhibit humility and remorse. He said nothing about the staggering success of the Lexus brand in the United States and its growing reputation in the global market. He failed to mention the fact that the two core products of Lexus—the LS sedan and the RX crossover—have essentially reshaped the luxury-car business in their own images. Instead, the man talked about emotion.
Opening a folded sheet of paper, Mr. Toyoda read a few comments that were critical of Lexus and its ability to emotionally connect with its customers. "Boring to drive," he read, then he looked up at the audience in a manner that was apologetic, rather than challenging. What other CEO of an automotive company would forthrightly reiterate the chief criticism of his products like that? Even his choice of reading from a sheet of paper, rather than the teleprompters, meant something. It was meant to convey that he had read, and understood, that criticism. That he had accepted it.
Having accepted the criticism, the master driver of the Lexus brand proceeded to refute it. First, there was a typically concept-looking concept, a four-door sedan/fuel-cell thing that looked no more or less likely than any other concept car debuting at this or any other show. The audience clapped politely but nothing more. It didn't matter. It was only prologue to what would come next.
The production-ready 2017 Lexus LC500 that rolled onto the stage, to somewhat fevered applause from the standing-room-only crowd, is as important for what it is not as for what it is. This is what it is not: A hybrid. A four-door compromise "coupe". Turbocharged. Supercharged. Small-displacement. Modestly sized. Sensible. Socially responsible.
No, the LC500 is exactly the car for which we'd hoped. Big and bold. Beautifully proportioned yet unashamedly Japanese in its shape and the detailing of the greenhouse and interior. It is a pure and proper coupe, powered by the mighty titanium-valved five-liter Lexus V8 that we already know (and love) from the RC-F. This is an era where even Porsche feels compelled to greenwash every new-vehicle introduction by talking about environmental responsibility and CO2 emissions, but Toyoda chose instead to play a thunderous recording of the LC500's V8 changing gears at redline. Not a word was spoken about the environment or about the responsible usage of dwindling resources. Akio Toyoda stood before his glasspack-voiced crimson monster with perfect confidence, knowing that, as the world's foremost manufacturer of hybrid vehicles, Toyota cannot possibly be shamed out for this singular indulgence.
It was stagecraft, of course—a painstakingly rehearsed speech refined with all the attention given to the LC500's engine or its headlight cluster. But it was also refreshingly authentic for all that, a whole-hearted expression of automotive enthusiasm. As is the LC500 itself. Were it watered-down into a four-door "coupe", it would sell better; as a hybrid, it would have more credibility with the coastal elites whose idea of driving is a traffic-clogged commute from Rowayton or Napa. It is neither. Which makes it noteworthy, and courageous, and interesting.
Surely this big Lexus won't be to everyone's taste. Just as surely, it is anything but boring. It's a glove thrown on the ground in the direction of every European luxury manufacturer. A declaration that Lexus intends to challenge them on the battlefield of emotional involvement even as most of them retreat from that ground. Finally, and most importantly, it is a gift to the well-heeled car lovers of the world. From a man who could be called chairman, but who prefers to be called a driver.
