Does anyone actually like this new color over the reddish-brown color from before?

 

Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I, for one, don't like it.

 

Natural wood colors comes in many different shades, & from the very light to very dark. The more common reddish brown wood people see may not even be natural, sometimes they are just stained to look that way.
My least favorite wood trim color for car interior is grey, but taste is always subjective . . .

 

My RX350 has the golden birdseye maple trim. I like the looks with the ivory interior.

 

I myself don't like dark-color wood trim. Really dark or grayish-color wood, like in the Jaguar R models, takes away from its looks and IMO doesn't look like wood at all. Too much polishing and gloss can also detract from the looks of wood trim...that's one of the problems with the new Lexus ES and IS models.....and one reason why I tend to like low-gloss matte-wood trim such as in the new Acura RL and the 2005-2006 Outbacks.

Now...as for the lighter wood shades posted above, the light birch and yellowish-color wood trims and shades didn't start in Toyotas.....they were, for the most part, pioneered by Volvo. The light birch-wood look is generally a Swedish thing, but perhaps its attractiveness is starting to expand into some other car brands. I don't know this for a fact, but my guess is that Toyota did some research and found that a lot of people, like me, we, didn't care for the dark polished wood-trim look....or at least enough to warrant a change in the interiors.

 

I'm with you on that one, Andrew.....see my comments above.

 

I only like it on certain cars such as the SC430, but I can't imagine having that color in my GS.

 

I would characterized the wood trim in the RL as very high gloss (as pointed out before in another thread), more polished than some Lexus wood trim. The wood trim in the M35/45, & those available as options in Mercedes & BMW 7, are matter finish wood trims.

 

Yes, I remember that thread. I didn't agree with your assessment then, and still don't. The RL's trim, while not quite as matte as I would like, IMO is far from high-gloss. But, you are correct that in the Infiniti M cars, the Rosewood trims have a somewhat more matte-finish. I pointed that out in my review of the M35X AWD...how well-done it was, especially considering how cheap the first G35 interiors were.

 

& you can't see the huge difference between the glossiness of the RL wood trim & those in the M35/45. They look night & day to me, & I saw them both numerous times (I usually sit inside a M45 waiting everytime I bring my G35 coupe in for a free interior vacuum & I do that quite often)
I happen to like the wood trim in the RL a lot more than the M45 BTW.

 

Not in the specific cars that I drove. There was a difference, but it was not huge. Perhaps, as in the Subaru Outbacks, the trim in the 2007 RL was different than the 2006, which I reviewed.

Anyhow, the main question in the thread concerns the lighter trim in the Toyotas shown above. What do you think of that color? Like you, I would far prefer it to the gray stuff, which IMO doesn't look like wood at all.

 

I love the wood trim in the RL. The wood is thick and beautiful, and the vents are cut into the wood so precisely.

 

I love it, but only if it's real wood( so not the toyota stuff), it goes especially well with light color leather.
However, let me point out to you that natural wood do come in grey too, so being grey does not mean it does not look like real wood - it's just a preconception (not reality) formed in people's mind because grey wood is not frequently seen not only in cars, but in furnitures & other stuff.

 

I would have preferred the yellow wood trim in my RX300. I actually bought a postmarket 'stick on' wood trim, but even then the dark wood and tan interior plus gray dash doesn't quite click with me.

 

I think it looks good with the beige interior but definately not the grey one.