The Lexus Story
02-28-07, 02:58 PM
#17
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I bought a Lexus Story from Amazon (cloth, chrome logo, cardboard box) for $25. When I bought an LS 430 a week later the dealer gave me a copy (leather, black pearl, white cardboard box) so I returned the Amazon copy.
The first copy I ever saw in the dealer's waiting room was black leather, black pearl logo in a black leather slipcase. It was just beautiful and it cost $100. The price has come way down, but so has the quality. I don't think you can get the slipcover version anymore.
The first copy I ever saw in the dealer's waiting room was black leather, black pearl logo in a black leather slipcase. It was just beautiful and it cost $100. The price has come way down, but so has the quality. I don't think you can get the slipcover version anymore.
02-28-07, 09:59 PM
#18
I bought a Lexus Story from Amazon (cloth, chrome logo, cardboard box) for $25. When I bought an LS 430 a week later the dealer gave me a copy (leather, black pearl, white cardboard box) so I returned the Amazon copy.
The first copy I ever saw in the dealer's waiting room was black leather, black pearl logo in a black leather slipcase. It was just beautiful and it cost $100. The price has come way down, but so has the quality. I don't think you can get the slipcover version anymore.
The first copy I ever saw in the dealer's waiting room was black leather, black pearl logo in a black leather slipcase. It was just beautiful and it cost $100. The price has come way down, but so has the quality. I don't think you can get the slipcover version anymore.
03-02-07, 11:36 AM
#21
Im not shure what to think...i just got mine three days ago...ordered it from lexus-parts.com
http://www.lexus-parts.com/partdetai...bCategoryID=26
And...i paid $66 (plus quite a bit for freight to Norway
), for this "limited edition" wich says suggested retail price $50 on the back... Dont get me wrong...the book is nice...very nice...black matte vinyl with chrome 3d logo. But is this really the limited edition?
http://www.lexus-parts.com/partdetai...bCategoryID=26
And...i paid $66 (plus quite a bit for freight to Norway
), for this "limited edition" wich says suggested retail price $50 on the back... Dont get me wrong...the book is nice...very nice...black matte vinyl with chrome 3d logo. But is this really the limited edition?
10-19-11, 09:50 PM
#23
The lexus story:
Lexus hit a grand slam its first at-bat in the majors when it rolled out the LS400 in May 1989, rubbing it in the noses of competing German manufacturers by doing so in Cologne, on their home turf. A writer for American trade magazine Automotive Industries called the car “the nightmare…. Because that’s what Toyota has created for the world’s luxury class carmakers. All of them.”
The idea for the “nightmare” was born from internal market research, which told company execs as the 1980s began that their loyal Baby Boomer customer base was getting older and trading in their Toyotas for BMW and Mercedes-Benz rides. The Crown, a “luxury” car in the Japanese market, wouldn’t cut it in the U.S., it was decided — it was too small, too ornate, and underpowered. “We need something bigger, and we need it today,” wrote Norman Lean, a Toyota veep, in a memo to top brass in Japan.
Lean and other execs found their chief advocate in Yukiyasu Togo, president and CEO of Toyota’s U.S. division, whose first coup was to convince the parent company to build an American assembly plant in Kentucky . He believed that by building a true luxury car, Toyota could assume overall image leadership in the U.S. “If we could earn the badge of ‘Number One’ in this huge market, it would send reverberations throughout the world.”
Board members back in Toyota City in Japan were skeptical. Could Toyota really challenge European manufacturers, with their long history and accumulated market knowledge? Would threatening Cadillac and Lincoln promote trade problems with the U.S. ? And wouldn’t building such a car betray the company’s roots, which had avoided frivolity in building practical cars for the masses for so long?
Circle F is born
Togo received the go-ahead from chairman Eiji Toyoda at an August 1983 board meeting. The “Circle F” (for flagship) project would compete directly against the BMW 7-Series, Jaguar sedans, and the Mercedes S-Class as a viable luxury car for the American market.
The first step in the totally secret project was to figure out what luxury meant to Americans. Engineers and designers established a beachhead in Laguna Beach, California , in April 1985, and later on in other affluent parts of the country, to find out how luxury buyers lived, to understand their sense of value, and how they used and felt about their cars.
Leading the engineering effort was Ichiro Suzuki, who told his staff that his vision for Circle F was a vehicle that could reach 155 mph, get 22.5 mpg, had a drag coefficient of 0.28 or 0.29, and had a noise level at 60 mph of 58 decibels — all superior numbers to what the competition boasted at the time. Such performance would coexist with benchmark comfort levels. Akira Takahashi, Toyota ’s director of product engineering, told Suzuki he was out of his mind. The company simply did not have the capability to produce the car Suzuki envisioned. Suzuki refused to leave Takahashi’s office until he promised to attempt production of just one engine.
Toyota engineers were also not used to the idea of a luxury car with high-performance driving dynamics; in Japan , luxury cars were driven by chauffeurs, and enjoying the driving experience was a bit of a foreign concept. Takahashi ultimately became Suzuki’s most loyal convert, passionately driven to meet the performance benchmarks.
But similar answers were emerging from whomever read the marketing tea leaves. Suzuki, for his part, was starting to lose sleep over the knowledge that archrival Nissan was pursuing an identical strategy with what would become the Infiniti, and that Honda also planned a higher-level product line (Acura).
Untold future
For its part, Toyota ultimately decided that Circle F would have its own brand name, and that this new entity, Lexus, would forge a competitive advantage by having its dealers provide the highest level of service in the industry, an area where European manufacturers tended to disenfranchise customers. Internal research suggested, for example, that fewer than 50 percent of Mercedes owners at the time elected to service their cars at dealerships, simply because they wanted to actually talk to the person who was going to work on their car. So instead of service technicians, Lexus dealers would have white-shirted “Diagnostic Specialists” who would interact directly with customers, who could view spotless service bays through large plate-glass windows while relaxing in luxurious, art-bedecked media lounges.
Mahler details the other challenges that bedeviled the product launch, including a suit by legal data giant Lexis over trademark infringement that left the name of the line in doubt until the eleventh hour, and the first product recall, primarily involving overheating brake lights, which Lexus used as an opportunity to showcase its commitment to customer service and which ultimately became a historic highlight that helped define the company. Product cycle development and trade war challenges are also covered.
Less space is devoted to the development of other Lexus products such as the second-tier ES line, the SC sport coupes, and the LX and RX sport-utility vehicles. (Curiously, the only mention of the midsize GX470 sport-ute takes the form of a single profile photo and spec listing on a spread devoted to the current model lineup.)
But for such a relatively young company, birth and early growth are where the story lies. The reader is left to appreciate the achievement that has been Lexus’s early years, yet wonder how future challenges will be met. In that sense, it may still be too early to tell how the Lexus story will unfold.
When Lexus launched fifteen years ago, the idea of a Japanese luxury brand that would compete fender for fender with Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Cadillac seemed preposterous. But Lexus' first sedan shocked the world. The result of hundreds of prototypes, the work of more than 1,000 engineers, and some $1 billion, the Lexus LS 400 pioneered new ground. Within just a few years, Lexus had transformed itself from an unlikely outsider into one of the industry's leaders as it redefined the idea of the luxury vehicle while also building a dealer network that gave unprecedented attention to service. The Lexus Story describes the brand's rapid ascent-and its travails along the way. The Lexus Story is the first journalistic telling of the history of this extraordinary company. And it is the only account afforded full access to the designers, engineers, dealers, and company leaders who molded the cars and the brand. The Lexus Story takes readers deep inside the making of first-class automobiles, from the creative sparks kindled in Lexus' far-flung design studios to the engineering refinements that translate ideals of performance and luxury into steel, glass, and rubber. Designed to be both readable and visually welcoming and with more than 200 full-color photographs, The Lexus Story is a compelling history of a world-class brand.
The Black leather bound book with an actual chrome lexus logo on the cover, can be purchased for $50 on amazon.com
Peace!!!
The idea for the “nightmare” was born from internal market research, which told company execs as the 1980s began that their loyal Baby Boomer customer base was getting older and trading in their Toyotas for BMW and Mercedes-Benz rides. The Crown, a “luxury” car in the Japanese market, wouldn’t cut it in the U.S., it was decided — it was too small, too ornate, and underpowered. “We need something bigger, and we need it today,” wrote Norman Lean, a Toyota veep, in a memo to top brass in Japan.
Lean and other execs found their chief advocate in Yukiyasu Togo, president and CEO of Toyota’s U.S. division, whose first coup was to convince the parent company to build an American assembly plant in Kentucky . He believed that by building a true luxury car, Toyota could assume overall image leadership in the U.S. “If we could earn the badge of ‘Number One’ in this huge market, it would send reverberations throughout the world.”
Board members back in Toyota City in Japan were skeptical. Could Toyota really challenge European manufacturers, with their long history and accumulated market knowledge? Would threatening Cadillac and Lincoln promote trade problems with the U.S. ? And wouldn’t building such a car betray the company’s roots, which had avoided frivolity in building practical cars for the masses for so long?
Circle F is born
Togo received the go-ahead from chairman Eiji Toyoda at an August 1983 board meeting. The “Circle F” (for flagship) project would compete directly against the BMW 7-Series, Jaguar sedans, and the Mercedes S-Class as a viable luxury car for the American market.
The first step in the totally secret project was to figure out what luxury meant to Americans. Engineers and designers established a beachhead in Laguna Beach, California , in April 1985, and later on in other affluent parts of the country, to find out how luxury buyers lived, to understand their sense of value, and how they used and felt about their cars.
Leading the engineering effort was Ichiro Suzuki, who told his staff that his vision for Circle F was a vehicle that could reach 155 mph, get 22.5 mpg, had a drag coefficient of 0.28 or 0.29, and had a noise level at 60 mph of 58 decibels — all superior numbers to what the competition boasted at the time. Such performance would coexist with benchmark comfort levels. Akira Takahashi, Toyota ’s director of product engineering, told Suzuki he was out of his mind. The company simply did not have the capability to produce the car Suzuki envisioned. Suzuki refused to leave Takahashi’s office until he promised to attempt production of just one engine.
Toyota engineers were also not used to the idea of a luxury car with high-performance driving dynamics; in Japan , luxury cars were driven by chauffeurs, and enjoying the driving experience was a bit of a foreign concept. Takahashi ultimately became Suzuki’s most loyal convert, passionately driven to meet the performance benchmarks.
But similar answers were emerging from whomever read the marketing tea leaves. Suzuki, for his part, was starting to lose sleep over the knowledge that archrival Nissan was pursuing an identical strategy with what would become the Infiniti, and that Honda also planned a higher-level product line (Acura).
Untold future
For its part, Toyota ultimately decided that Circle F would have its own brand name, and that this new entity, Lexus, would forge a competitive advantage by having its dealers provide the highest level of service in the industry, an area where European manufacturers tended to disenfranchise customers. Internal research suggested, for example, that fewer than 50 percent of Mercedes owners at the time elected to service their cars at dealerships, simply because they wanted to actually talk to the person who was going to work on their car. So instead of service technicians, Lexus dealers would have white-shirted “Diagnostic Specialists” who would interact directly with customers, who could view spotless service bays through large plate-glass windows while relaxing in luxurious, art-bedecked media lounges.
Mahler details the other challenges that bedeviled the product launch, including a suit by legal data giant Lexis over trademark infringement that left the name of the line in doubt until the eleventh hour, and the first product recall, primarily involving overheating brake lights, which Lexus used as an opportunity to showcase its commitment to customer service and which ultimately became a historic highlight that helped define the company. Product cycle development and trade war challenges are also covered.
Less space is devoted to the development of other Lexus products such as the second-tier ES line, the SC sport coupes, and the LX and RX sport-utility vehicles. (Curiously, the only mention of the midsize GX470 sport-ute takes the form of a single profile photo and spec listing on a spread devoted to the current model lineup.)
But for such a relatively young company, birth and early growth are where the story lies. The reader is left to appreciate the achievement that has been Lexus’s early years, yet wonder how future challenges will be met. In that sense, it may still be too early to tell how the Lexus story will unfold.
When Lexus launched fifteen years ago, the idea of a Japanese luxury brand that would compete fender for fender with Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Cadillac seemed preposterous. But Lexus' first sedan shocked the world. The result of hundreds of prototypes, the work of more than 1,000 engineers, and some $1 billion, the Lexus LS 400 pioneered new ground. Within just a few years, Lexus had transformed itself from an unlikely outsider into one of the industry's leaders as it redefined the idea of the luxury vehicle while also building a dealer network that gave unprecedented attention to service. The Lexus Story describes the brand's rapid ascent-and its travails along the way. The Lexus Story is the first journalistic telling of the history of this extraordinary company. And it is the only account afforded full access to the designers, engineers, dealers, and company leaders who molded the cars and the brand. The Lexus Story takes readers deep inside the making of first-class automobiles, from the creative sparks kindled in Lexus' far-flung design studios to the engineering refinements that translate ideals of performance and luxury into steel, glass, and rubber. Designed to be both readable and visually welcoming and with more than 200 full-color photographs, The Lexus Story is a compelling history of a world-class brand.
The Black leather bound book with an actual chrome lexus logo on the cover, can be purchased for $50 on amazon.com
Peace!!!
11-20-11, 01:21 AM
#28
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I was at the LA Auto Show today, and they were selling some books. Asked if they had The Lexus Story, and the guy pulled the book out. There it was in all it's glory: Hard Leather cover, black Lexus emblem, and over 200 pages of history and awesome! I had to have it!
So, I asked him how much?
$50.
Figured I could probably find it even cheaper online, and after a quick google search
Ta-Da!
$20.
Gonna order a copy next month.
So, I asked him how much?
$50.
Figured I could probably find it even cheaper online, and after a quick google search
Ta-Da!
$20.
Gonna order a copy next month.
11-20-11, 09:37 AM
#30
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Posts: n/a
I will double check for you....they might have as Lexus understood what Acura/Honda did not and still does not understand about product overlap. I think there is mention how an Integra at the time cost what an Accord did and it confused buyers. Lexus canned the Cressida and made Lexus the luxury brand.
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