Lexus rumored to be readying a luxury minivan for Shanghai, report says
Minivans are big business in SE Asia, so could Lexus be looking to get in on that game with a fancy people-mover of its own?
BY
KYLE HYATT
MARCH 29, 2019
Here in the US, the minivan has started to
fall by the wayside, relegated to its place in history as the butt of lazy jokes, as the SUV becomes the de facto family hauler. In China, however, that's not the case.
That's why when
Lexus announced that it would be debuting a new vehicle at the
Shanghai Auto Show next month, it got some folks thinking that rather than a new
RX or
GX, maybe it would be a real deal, no B.S. luxury Lexus minivan.
No, wait, stop laughing. We're serious.
The folks over at
Lexus Enthusiast convinced us. See, not long after the brand made its teaser announcement for Shanghai, the
Lexus Taiwan Facebook page posted some cryptic text talking about "Luxury of personal space" and so on, language which -- as Lexus Enthusiast points out -- is regularly used to sell
minivans in Southeast Asia.
It's like the people of China and SE Asia saw
Get Shorty back in 1995 and took the whole idea of "
Cadillac of minivans" thing to heart. The boxy people-conveyers aren't just sold to harried parents there, they are seen as real luxury vehicles for people with means and taste.
This idea of a Lexus minivan makes even more sense when you consider the fact that
Toyota has intimated that we could see a brand new
Sienna on a new platform by 2021. An announcement of a new luxury van now means that its release could coincide with that refresh.
Obviously, this is all a bunch of wild, tinfoil hat-wearing,
bicycle conversation in A Scanner Darkly-style crazy speculation, but wouldn't it be kind of cool?
Lexus didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
