“Lexus sold less than 37,000 cars in Western Europe while it sold 322,000 units in the U.S. In comparison, BMW sold 19,253 vehicles in Germany alone during the month of August.”

i laughed out loud when i read that…talk about brand recognition. i bet BMW is the employer of choice over there.

People in western Europe are too smart to buy a uninspiring “performance” car from a faux-luxury automaker. They have BMW M5 and Benz AMG’s

Who would take this over a BMW M3 Saloon/ C63 AMG or even a Audi RS4. Every car that I mentioned lookes miles better then this.

As opposed to Commodore, who has yet to master basic grammer.

Lexus makes a very fine automobile. Maybe too fine in-fact but Lexus only has cars that go from A to B without any drama in-between. BMW and Audi have passion and driving dynamics that create drama. As much as I think Lexus doesn’t have a clue about sports sedans or sports cars, they should be involved in the European market. Its very good to have competing models as it makes the models better.

Yeah, but if Lexus puts out a model “just to offer competition”, Toyota will be forced to put massive amounts of incentives on the cars just like with the Tundra. Sunshine got it right though, they are simply A to B cars. They are filled with cool, but pretty useless, technology though so that’s a plus

Statsmo – what do you mean I don’t know basic grammar? Just because I used “a” when I should have used “an”? Screw you, I was just typing fast

You guy are moron…do you know BMW just like MB is a taxi cap in western Europ??

elvio, that really depends. but what you’re saying does have some truth to it, i spent weeks in europe this summer and benz c classes and e classes were all over the place, many e classes were totally devoid of luxury, omitting things like LEATHER for instance. but that isnt really applicable to all bmws and mb’s sold there

Lexus is recognized globally, as luxury brand. What is so faux about it? Why, because they have a Toyota brand? Using your vastly flawed logic, BMW isn’t really a luxury brand either then, is it? It’s a bloody motorcycle company. Before that, I think it was airplanes.

Fact: Even Mercedes recognizes Lexus as more a direct competitor, than say, Audi.

Fact: More Americans ditch Caddies & Lincolns, to buy Lexus than any other brand.

Fact: BMW sells lots in Germany? Well no xxxx. That is like saying GMC & Ford sells a lot of pick-up trucks in America. This is bread & butter. Does Lexus sell more than any other luxury brand in Japan? Damn right.

The absolute crucial measure of success, if when you can go into another country, and dominate their sales. And I don’t mean xxxxty countries, where they don’t have their own brand, and import all the cars.

Lexus’s beatdown of Caddy & Lincoln in American soil? HUGE. BMW beating down Lexus in Germany? No xxxx sherlock.

Hahaha…yes, bring it sooner to the market so more people will experience your POS vehicles, Toy Ota. Great move!

EVEN an RS4? RS4 is the epitome of performance and BMW had to squeeze enough out of their M3 to come close. Granted the M3 is amazing, but the RS4 is technological genius and a work of beauty.
Lexus? Crap. Rushing to market? Recalls. Screw off toyota.

Lexus is a faux luxury brand in my eyes because it is one of the trio of asian ‘luxury’ brands that are simply upgraded Toyotas (Lexus), Hondas (Acura), or Nissans (Infiniti). Take a Camry, mold the sheetmetal, upgrade the interior, add geeky tech stuff, put an “L” badge on, and 10 minutes later you have yourself a Lexus ES330 or 350 or whatever they call them. Are they nice cars? Sure they are, but nowhere near BMWs – they lack the most important aspect of a car; excitement. If being the best luxury carmaker means having the most advanced technologies like 8 speeds and auto parallel park, then lexus is a winner. In my book, however, there is more to it then that. And BMW is not faux luxury – which motorcycle did they modify and upgrade to get the new M3?

Lexus took over the US luxury market because it came at a time when Caddy and Lincoln were sleeping…they were STILL building 6 passenger plush American granny rides and not giving what the consumer wanted. Lexus came at just the right time, a time when Toyota was exploding thanks to its ‘exceptional quality’ reputation so Lexus dominated because of its place as Toyota’s luxury brand. Lincoln is pretty much still sleeping, but Caddy’s new CTS is sure to give some all the luxury players some American competition

Statsmo its grammar not grammer

Commodore–you are seriously missing the point.

Why do you think they are called LUXURY cars? Having a high fun-to-drive feel & high performance are SPORTSCAR traits. Is Impreza WRX, a fun car to drive, a luxury vehicle? Seriously, you need give your head a shake and stop reading car magazines that put so much emphasis on handling when conducting luxury vehicle comparisons.

Now having said that, high-performance is definitely a good trait to have on a vehicle, regardless of what genre it is. If Toyota can make a Yaris hit 0-60mph in 5 seconds, pull over 1.0g on the skidpad and still attain 50mpg, then that is awesome. But the primary objective for Yaris is 50mpg, NOT the performance.

Lexus does not sell themselves as the most high performance cars. They pride themselves on refinement, comfort, reliability and world’s best fit and finish. Just starting recently, they have been beginning to branching out and making their vehicles slowly more exciting to drive. They still have their core customer base who enjoy the sublime ride quality, and the last thing they want to do is lose their huge customer base (largest in North America for luxury car brand).

You also say bad things about platform sharing–that is also insane. Everybody uses platform & part sharing these days. Lamborgini with Audi. Audi with VW. Jaguar with Ford. Land Rover with Ford. Mazda with Ford. Volvo with Ford. Mercedes with Chrysler (used to for a long time anyway). The list goes on, and on.

BMW does not, because… well they just don’t own much. They have Rolls Royce–which I guess would give BMW a better image, but now questions RR, according to your logic. It uses a BMW V12. Oh no. How degrading.

Have you even driven an ES350? I did, when I took my vehicle in for maintance service. Don Valley Parkway Lexus in Markham Ontario loaned it to me for 4 days (I’d like to see BMW do that). And you know what? I raped a modded 6-speed BMW 330iC that tried to get cute with me. He did a little ricer fly-by, and even ran red lights to avoid the embarassment.

Who says it’s not fun?

If I wanted a true fun car–I wouldn’t even buy a BMW. I would buy an Elise, MR-2 or an S2000. They aren’t even on the same level. And yes, I have driven 3-series before… several in fact. Do they handle nice? Yes, for a sedan. As nice as a true sportscar? Not even close. Does it ride well? Again, better than a sportscar, but it rides like a piece of $hit compared to a Lexus.

I’m not a fan of a manufacturer as boring (and as arrogant) as Lexus amping the rice power coefficient under the moniker of high performance.

im glad corner carver wrote us a novel

Corner – your post is way too long..don’t do that next time by the way.

My main point. It’s BOOOOOORING. You make a valid point, but my whole point is that the car isn’t interesting in any way except for the tech stuff. I don’t care if a car is mainstream, or luxury, or a sportscar – it has to have something more than the typical “getting me from point A to point B”. And also, remember that this article is about a luxury sportscar, so performane and handling mean EVERYTHING here (anyone can stick a big engine in, but there’s more to it than that..just ask BMW)

Haha, that’s your excuse? BMW doesn’t platform share because they ‘dont own much’. Well that makes them an even maker LUXURY carmaker because they are devoted to luxury, they dont make any boring mainstream cars. But with Lexus, their platform sharing is way too noticable – it isnt a badge job but its just too close (like the Nissan altima coupe/infinity G and land cruiser/GX470)

Well, BMW is best of both worlds. Ride nice? Of course. Handle nice, fun to drive, exciting? Yes, yes, and yes. So who is the better carmaker – BMW in my opinion.

///m is our hero of the day

Funny how some people on here bitch and moan about Lexus being boring and “A to B” cars, and when the brand finally dedicates itself to performance, they still bitch and moan.

I just smell a bunch of BS.

^^ well… hypocrisy, more like.

Actually cornercarver – Luxury makers are different to premium makers. The difference being that by peoples standards Lexus, Infiniti, Audi, Saab, Volvo, lincoln Caddilac etc are luxury cars where as the BMW’s and Merc tend to be more premium and so these manufacturers tend to overcharge with people willing to pay whatever the charge for the premium is.

Plus The biggest seller in these sectors are the usual german cars. Lexus has struggled ever since they were introduced there two years ago and have NEVER met their target sales by a wide margin. Japanese like the europeans like the technology to come before customer serice or anything else and thats where Mercedes and BMW whip lexuses asses. THats why most lexus are sold under the toyota name in japan.

Plus its only BMW thats actually consider lexus as competition and not being they produce decent cars(which they don’t). Its purely because they produce Rear wheel drive as opposed to the two or four wheel drive of Audi.

The only country the Lexus actually can sell cars in good numbers is the united states. If american stop buying lexus it would be dead in a matter of years. FACT

so many haters

Italy and Germany will not embrace cars from Japan ?

60 years ago they were allies, they should at least look their fellow allie’s product and buy more of it.

Commodore:
Nissan Altima and Infiniti G are not the same car. The altima only has similarly-inspired sheetmeta and VQl. Now, the 350Z acutally IS the same platform is the G.

It doens’t look that bad, but that 8 speed automatic? No DCT? and this will be a 2 ton pig. It’s okay, but no groundbreaking.

Japanese people are smart enough to not buy lexus in Japan because they know its a toyota with 10-20k mark ups for the “L” badge. Toyota tried to launch “Lexus” brand and failed miserably there. Its time for Americans to realize this too!

You guys should all shut up as you don’t really know what the general public wants and you’re biased towards ultra high performance cars you can’t afford. Let’s see the sales numbers and then we’ll talk.

Never underestimate Toyota and Lexus. These are two terribly smart companies: mark my words BMW and Audi have bigger concerns with Mercedes Benz and AMG.

Lexus quality and reliability mean a lot when you have owned cars that aren’t as beautifully and tightly built.

They just have to prove themselves. Nobody is going to look at photos of this car and think “wow, lexus understands performance”. Once this comes out and we see it on the street, drive it, race it, etc, we’ll be able to decide. Until then it’s all internet speculation.
Remember, these are the same people that made the twin turbo supra, compete in touring car racing for years, rally racing several years back, F1 (well, maybe we should ignore that one huh)..they understand how to make a performance car.
Will they ever have the history and legacy of MB or BMW? Of course not unless the build a frickin time machine. Does the “average” buyer give a crap? Nope.

I mean really, how many BMW or MB owners actually care about the performance, heritage, Nurburgring testing, touring car racing, F1, etc? 50%? 30%? How many people bought the last M3 because they just wanted the “top of the line 3 series”? I would bet, based on who I see driving them around here, quite a few.

Here’s a tip: next time you walk by an M3 (or any performance car of your choice) in a parking lot, check out the tires. See those little rubber hair things that are on the shoulder of the tire that were molded in there? If they’re not worn off, the car has never even been driven around a corner even close to it’s limit. Try it, you’ll be surprised how many people buy “performance cars” to putter along in the right lane and slow down for every turn that approaches .6G

Jeez sorry for the novel…too much coffee I guess.

lexus ia a faux luxury brand tailored around californian posh elite. Lexus cars are ugly ot at best badly designed; their styling is a no style, since at first they where just bad copies of older Mercedes and now they are just blend copies of pieces of Mercedes and Cadillacs and BMWs and else. Why you have to buy a Lexus when it’s possible to choose among Mercedes, Jaguars, Audi, Maserati, BMWs, Alfa Romeo, Cadillac, Aston Martin? Lexus are full of complicated and usless gizmos very expensive to replace when broken (and it happens much more often than J.D. Power statistics write, despite it!) not to mention that a Lexus is pricer to buy than competitors and service is nothing. Trash Lexus.

I am not a fan of Lexus latest styling of LS460 and frankly never was impressed by G class, but you have to give Lexus it’s dues: it is the premier luxury car company. Yes it is Toyota, just like Cadillac is part of GM and not Chevy. And it started the brand in US. However a year and a half ago I saw Lexus dealer in Madrid and Paris and I saw as many Lexus cars as S-class Benzes or to be precise I saw more LS430 in Madrid then BMW 7 and large Audis. This is mere observations but if Europeans are buying 8 cylinders Lexuses on a continent where gas is between 6 & 7 USD per gallon we are talking luxury cars. Those Lexuses cost as much in Europe as Benzes and BMW 7 yet they don’t come with diesels. Some jerk offs will say that those Europeans are as stupid as Americans to buy “faux” luxury. Let not forget that folks who CAN afford $60-80K car earn that kind of dough and probably do earn it, not inherited via trust fund. They want a luxury car that will start in the morning and get them to the office in comfort, without excuses on top of the flat top (Audi comes to mind and occasionally BMW 7). If Lexus launches IS-F in Europe they WILL sell them and will compete with pompous Nazi ubermachines.

Just thought I’d clear up some ignorance around here (Americans, what did I expect?)

While reading some comments here and other comments from the past it seems that most people here think that Lexus takes an already built Toyota badged car and then modifies it slightly and then calls it a Lexus. They are what one would call “idiots”.

In fact the distinction between, what will eventually become an Toyota and Lexus, is made very early on in the design process. Only the basics of a new platform has been designed when the Toyota and Lexus development teams take it and go their separate ways to create something quite different. Some may say that this still somehow takes away the “premium” from the Lexus badge or that it is still “just a Toyota” but those people have no idea what an platform really is.

The other thing I notice while reading comments is that most think that Lexus is boring, I agree, they are boring. When Toyota started Lexus their goal WAS to be boring. Boring in the sense that they prioritize comfort over rock hard suspension, whisper quiet and vibration free engines instead of howling demons under your hood. What you fail to see is that this is a feature and not a fault, the same applies to those cars that have hard suspension and demons, it’s not some mistake that a intern made, they were meant to be that way.

The only thing we can really see when looking at these sales figures is that Americans prefer to go slow in comfort, while us Europeans like to go fast. But hey, we knew that already.

I don’t think the whole F series, or rather the first batch of F-series Lexus cars, will be much of a competition to the already established brands. However, given time, I’m sure they will be.
I’m sure this what the executives at BMW and Mercedes think the same way, so they will strive to make even better cars that they have up until now, so we’ll get better cars no matter what happens. Everybody wins, expect the ones who like argue over the Internet.

RobCali – i see that they are trying and that is good. The F-series cars are not their first failure in the performace segment though. They have had multiple failures in the past and the point is simply that BMW and Benz do it better. My comment on this article was simply that I’m not surprised Lexus was overshadowed at Frankfurt and I’m not surprised they are not as successful in Europe as they are here

WEks, In japan
lexus ls = toyota celsior
lexus gs = toyota aristo
lexus es = toyota windom
lexus is = toyota altezza
and these so called Lexus models cost significantly more than what they sell them in japan as toyotas.
so don’t give me this bs about how they distinguish their lexus models from toyota from very early in the design process. They are just rebadged toyotas. Also, I have owned several lexus cars in the past and in every window, there was a toyota stamp all over it. I am not saying Lexus is a bad car. Toyota makes very reliable vehicles. It just there’s no reason to pay such a premium for something that is made to be cheaper.

But hey, guess what, we were not talking about Japan.

“It just there’s no reason to pay such a premium for something that is made to be cheaper.”

Are you talking about the premuim the German makers get in the US due to their “status symbol” marketing and public perception?

that’s my point weks. People in states pay extra $ for lexus thinking its premium, when it is not! Germans built a long reputation of becoming that status symbol you are talking about Jerk, long before toyota even start making cars. BMW, Mercedes have right to be called premium automakers. why do you think toyota came up with brand called Lexus in the first place? to compete with kia or mercury?

“It just there’s no reason to pay such a premium for something that is made to be cheaper.”

This is what most people don’t understand. Not to defend Toyota but their parts are already better made than the Germans. The interior of a Camry doesn’t peel and degrade like the 3 series. If you look past the badging, you’re actually getting more for your money buying an IS than the 3 series. So your definition of “premium” only applies to brand image, not the products themselves.

veda: have you ever own a 3 series and Is long enough to say this? I’m not trying to assume things here or anything but I am on my 3rd 3series(and m) and they never peeled or degraded over time like you have said. Maybe your 3 was a lemon.? I don’t know but from my experience, they age very well overtime which is why I am on my 3rd one. I never owned IS so I don’t know how well they hold up but trust me, 3s are rock solid in my book.

Stuart: that’s exactly how it is, you nailed it my friend.

e46Ne90: I’ve owned 11 units of the 3 series in the past excluding 2 units of the current model. In the new model they’ve improved only due to the fact that they use harder plastic which many deemed to be cheaper than the old material. Personally I don’t know and can care less, I just want them to not peel and scratched. The same peeling issue also applies to Audi and the Volvos prior to year 2002.

Commodore: BMW may have luxury and sport but they are plagued with electrical problems and their standard seats suck. In many people’s book that’s already a turnoff.

e46Ne90: Also, the peeling problem is inherent in the previous gen 5 series as well. There’s just no escaping it unless you treat it like porcelain.

Hey if you have owned 11 of 3series, regardless of your bad experience, didn’t BMW hit a home run on that model? Obviously you are keep buying it over and over. This is the truth about BMWs. People tend to buy BMW because of how it drives. Once you have driven one you can’t drive any other(at least in its class)

One of my buddies JUST picked up a Lexus IS250 6-speed. We drove around the city in it, and let me tell you, it’s a ****ing stunner. WAY nicer in and out than my borther-in-law’s 330 sedan, and a much smoother and slicker drive. Even with 205 hp, it’s fairly quick and handles well. And it’s interior is as sporty as they come. The backseat is so small, it’s almost vestigial.

Great car, I would definitely consider the IS over a 3-series. Definitely.

I thought Pontiac was slapped upside the head for using stupid ground effects and body cladding? That is by far the ugliest rocker ground effect ever. Straight out of j.c. Whitney. And to think I thought the ground effects on the new beak nosed Camry SE were bad.

Corner: “What is so faux-about it?” IT”S JUST A REBADGED TOYOTA!

Meanpants: Fortiunately, I’ve only owned one car that wasn’t as “well-built.”

Weks, you’re right to a certain extent — some are plucked off the assembly line and sent for a round of qualkity testing. They pass, they go further down on a different path, ending with an “L.”
That’s not decided in design

e46: I’d take a kia or a mercury over a “L—s” any day

This car is just an alteeza

OK LETS SEE WHAT HAPPEN WHEN IT TOUCHES THE EUROPEAN MARKET.

Where is the manual transmission option, Lexus? Until Lexus offers the IS-F or any of the future F-series cars with manual transmissions like BMW, Audi, and Cadillac does, I will always view Lexus F-series as poseur wannabe performance vehicles. You really have no credibility as a performance vehicle when you arrive at the scene with only an automatic – paddle shifters or not. It’s not even a DSG system – it’s pathetic.

“Great car, I would definitely consider the IS over a 3-series. Definitely.

Comment by Deanster, posted on September14 at 8:41 am ”

Funny – no other automotive journalist in the world who has tested these two cars agrees with you.