alwyn

Hello,
I recently heard on a tv program that the name Lexus came from a combination of....
Luxury
EXports
United
States.
Is this true ?

Tammy

No .... it's not

JZA80MHU38

That's an urban legend. Toyota official denies it, but this interpretation does make sense.

-J-P-L-

This has been discussed numerous times on ClubLexus.

The reality is that it actually was derived from the original idea "Alexis".
One of the team members responsible for coming up with a name basically
messed around with Alexis and dropped the "A" and of course changed "i" to "u".

GRAND_LS 4

iTrader: (2)

Actually, its Luxury + Elegence = Lexus.

-J-P-L-

This is another of the myths.

Everyone here should read the "Lexus Story". It's a really high quality book with all the real facts.
This is where it talks about the name originating from "Alexis".

STIG

I think it was a random computer generated word.

SDLexus

From Wikipedia:

An image consulting firm presented a list of 219 names, from which Vectre, Verone, Chaparel, Calibre and Alexis were top candidates. While Alexis quickly became the front runner and later morphed to Lexus, the name has been attributed to the combination of the words "luxury" and "elegance." According to Toyota, however, the name had no meaning and was just meant to be pleasing and easy to remember....

...Another theory has surfaced, claiming that the Lexus name was given to the project by Toyota in the mid-80s, as an acronym for Luxury EXport United States.

Hunter Communications, the agency who designed the "L" logo and also presented the name to Toyota management, says Lexus was born of the "LE" on the automaker's luxury edition vehicles, which created the acronym "Luxury Edition for the United States" or "LEUS" with the "x" from "luxury" added to form "LEXUS".

diablo1

Wow, so you're telling me I was almost driving a Chaparel IS 350? Dang, that name is just terrible. Plus there is already a Vector car, so it's good that they didn't go with Vectre:

LexFather

Bingo.....Its in the Lexus story......They even got sued by anothe company called LExus, but we won

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

I always thought it could be a mixture of the words Luxury and Nexus using the 3rd definition:

nex·us ( P ) Pronunciation Key (nkss)
n. pl. nexus or nex·us·es
1. A means of connection; a link or tie: “this nexus between New York's... real-estate investors and its... politicians” (Wall Street Journal).
2. A connected series or group.
3. The core or center: “The real nexus of the money culture [was] Wall Street” (Bill Barol).

jimxo

Elexus was the planned name but a legal battle ended that.

Lexus is better I think its a great name.

Nextourer

Well, Mazda wanted to launch its luxury brand named the Amati.... that never went through.