lexmaster

Lexus has talked a lot of crap the last couple of years about bringing the brand upscale. They have hired an advertising agency out of NY to help them achieve this, and there are widely circulated rumours that Lexus is working on a sports car that would use a V10 engine derived from Toyota's F1 car. I was excited at first, and still am, but latest rumours have this engine at 400 hp. Again, if you want to make a $150,000 sports car, you better put in more ponies than that. 400 hp is hardly anything to get excited about when you mention sports car nowadays.

The fact of the matter is, Lexus is losing ground to MB and BMW in the performance area. Yes, Lexus is the best in quality and reliability without doubt. However, Cadillac has jumped to second place, and I believe the other big boys will make improvements in the next few years. The truth is, reliability and quality won't sell as much b/c let's face it, cars are getting better and better each year no matter what brand. MB and BMW are right up there (Except the M Class piece of crap is hurting MB's JD power surveys) and function ALMOST as well as a Lexus. So what is left? Well design and hp. Both of these lack world class status when you mention Lexus. Don't get me wrong, I own a Lexus and I love my car. But I'm getting fed up with these weak designs, and Lexus' reluctance to put some real power into their V8s. This new GS? Hardly a design winner, and the 4.3 L V8 has been in that car for 4 years by the time the 06 is out. Look at the front headlights? Does that scream upscale to you? Definitely not to me, and I won't even go into the Maxima look, I had a hard time with that yesterday.

In any event look at MB. They have a seven speed automatic transmission (Lexus missed the boat on this one again), their collission system on the S class is far superior to that of LS and they are working on an even far superior one for the next S class. Lexus is not keeping up in the technology race either. They are losing here too.

Lexus needs to start hiring some U.S. managers who will make the decisions for the brand. The conservative Japanese are reluctant to add power to their cars and as the Generation Y grows older, you won't see Lexus and Toyota sell as many cars. They need to build a high performance division for Lexus and some top notch designers and they will be back on track. Lexus only sold 21,000 units in all of Europe last year. Hardly anything to boast about. Truth is, their sales success is only happening in the U.S. Worldwide, they are hardly a hit. If they keep producing these clones and keep using the same engines as Toyota with very few hp, then they will never bring the brand upscale.

Whether you like it or not, hp is part of luxury nowadays. You don't need 400, 500 hp. But if other manufacturers are willing to give it to you, why doesn't Lexus? When Lexus came in 1990 and kicked MB's butt in the STates (MB is kicking their butt everywhere else in the world), MB responded. It took them a few years, but they did. It's time for Lexus to respond. 300 hp will hardly make a noise.

Lastly, I'm not trying to offend anyone b/c I myself am a Lexus owner. I just want to have the option of having something more to boast about than quality. The quality talk frankly, is getting old. Especially since you have to really try to buy a poor quality luxury car.

lexmaster

I have seen the GS introduction and it is correct, Denny Clements never mentions hp. Only that it is powered by a 4.3 V8. So it seems more hp will be coming, but I am betting that Toyota won't put in more than 15 ponies. They are too conservative. Just as the 2001 LS only received some 20 additional lbs of torque, the 2006 GS will be no different.

LexFather

B/C they rather feed you HP figures then getting the radio to work and window to roll down.

Some of ya'll think it's that easy, to just SQUEEZE HP outta an engine


lexmaster, your posts, all 16 of them are getting very redundant at this point.

Johnny Mo

Lexus already said they WILL NOT get into a horsepower/performance war, there was never any doubt of that. They are a LUXURY BRAND first and foremost. AMG and M lines are SPORT BRANDS ifrst luxury second. Jim Press's exact words were they won't be everything to everyone. They have their niche and that's where they are content to play.

Besides look at the sales of the current GS4, vs the 3, do you really think that Lexus/Toyota is going to spend millions of dollars in creating a "racing brand" like an AMG or M and it take off immediately??? Look at what happend to L-Tuned (granted it wasn't what any of us hoped for), but honestly they don't feel that there's enough market for "them" to get excited over.

Additionally, they don't have the perceived racing history/bloodlines that the german makers do.

As far as calling bringing the brand upscale "talking crap" they are going upscale, upscale luxury, because some people interpreted it differently (i.e. performance) doesn't mean Lexus fell behind on anything. The only thing they fell behind on was yours (and I'm sure others) expectations of what the new model's performance would be...and even that is not set in stone right now as evidenced by the conspicuous lack of detail on the V-8 or other powerplants and drive systems.

RON430

Come on now, anyone who dropped a 430 into a 98 GS deserves some respect.

Lvangundy

AHAHAHHAA LOL..

I think it's the default car selection when you setup your profile. LOL

KVA

LOL...it IS the default

LexusPride

I'll play devil's advocate and agree to some extent with lexmaster. Why? Because I think if Lexus had actually announced yesterday that they were going to replace the 4.3 V8 with a 4.5 or 4.7 V8 capable of anywhere between 325 and say, 350hp if not more, I think a significant number of people would be calling it a 5-series slayer or E-class killer. I feel that alone would be the decision-maker for those on the fence about it's new design. Now the only people that would really benefit by no engine change would be GS300 buyers, as the hp gap now narrows to 55 instead of 80. First the GS V8 lost steering wheel shifting (I realize this was necessary for the 4.3), then they got no Sport Design, now they get no AWD and possibly no power increase! At this point, why not just go back to one GS model and give it about 275 hp for about 45k? I do have a question though: what engine could they upgrade to, in say 2008 that would keep them from alienating owners of the 4.3? Is a 4.7 the next logical choice, and if so, would they only keep it at around 320 hp? Otherwise, based on their lifecycle history, wouldn't we be looking at almost 15 years then with around 300 hp by the time they go to replace this GS?

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

Oh you mean they might bring it up to the same HP as the BRAND NEW 545i?

I guess those dying for more HP think of E55's, M5's, etc., of which those manufacturers sell miniscule numbers, and which most of the people on here who compare to them could never afford one.

LexFather

BITSLAPPED!

VVT-i

LMAO,Bitslapped.

VVT-i

1Sick, while I was typing, your post already in there..

LexusPride

Maybe everyone was spoiled by the fact that when the 2nd gen GS400 debuted it was one of, if not THE fastest sedans in the world. Now it is content just to keep pace overall. I mean, technologically it doesn't really set itself far apart from either MB or BMW. I don't recall any WOW! gadgets announced (although maybe they have something up their sleeve). Heck, they got rid of I think, one of the cooler features, Optitron gauges. After looking at all the pics up close, I'm not as excited as I thought from watching the video. I guess I'm just underwhelmed, if only because I've been looking at the same car for 7 years with no real change. I guess Something Wicked This Way doesn't Come.

RON430

You just have to love the comments on the new GS. Vendors must really be in love with the customers here. No one yet has put their "little tooshie" (sorry but with the Governator in Cali this is trying to replace bling as the most juvenile words in the popular lexicon) in a new GS and yet the lines have been drawn in the sand about how either Lexus hit it out of the park or has lost untold future sales. To those of you who have posted that you will make decisions after seeing the car for real and driving it for yourselves, congratulations! It's nice to have a few more adults here.

After almost three days of thrashing my GS around Laguna Seca, two things stood out.

1.) It was just amazing that I could drive that car as hard as I and others did for three days and at the end there wasn't a squeak or rattle in the car.

2.) The E55 and M5 that were there for other purposes, but which I had a chance to drive, both left on trailers after, I'll try to be nice, becoming undriveable.

As I posted elsewhere, my biggest complaint with the current GS was suspension, not power. And for those of you who have lives beyond the internet, it was interesting that DWTV (German TV version of Auto Motor und Sport) did an e500/545 comparo that ran last weekend and in the 0-62 (0-100kmh) obligatory numbers, the bimmer was at 6.4 and the merc at 6.5 seconds - hardly earth shattering.

But once again we can see just how many people here decide whether or not to purchase $50K+ automobiles based on a handful of pictures and a spec sheet. Amazing. And the fact that bimmer sales were down 5% in December with the 5 well in dealer's hands just doesn't matter. That Infiniti's 345hp has yet to translate into quicker accelertion than the "underpowered" Lexus competition just doesn't seem to grab folks attention. 345 has to be better than 300, it's bigger.

If usable horsepower matters to you, save yourself some grief and watch the new corvette. If they make the enhanced version with the 427, it is for you. Next event for me in the GS evolution is to see what Lexus has in store for pricing on the GS. $58K 530's leave me very cold.

1998 GS430 is the "default"?

doug_999

Yes, they got rid of the too dim dashboard - THANK GOD! Look at the number of posts on this board regarding the guages not being bright enough (myself included). The removal of this "feature" is a good thing IMHO. Sometimes the cool features just don't work so well.

Personally, the only thing that I don't like about the new GS is that it seems to have come from the RX part bin. From the wheels,to the steering wheel, to the dash, all very similar to an RX330 - and damn, wouldn't you know it, another freggin wood steering wheel. To this day, I don't know why Lexus does that - especially in a "performance" car. It may look "cool" but it sucks in functionality.