FreddyG

I do agree with You about the New Lexus commercials and maybe it's my age but I don't understand the whole concept of some Model painting the car with a power sprayer and what it has to do with the brand.

Maybe I don't quite understand what You're saying but I just went to a BMW sponsored invitational event where they let us drive their EV cars and SAV's (as they like to call them) and in my opinion, they haven't ignored the enthusiast drivers because those cars handled quite well. We had a chance to street drive them and also take them on a race track and Auto-X them. The EV versions were actually quicker in both acceleration and braking while handling as well as their M counterparts. Possibly, You might have just driven the wrong vehicles from them.

In my opinion, Lexus doesn't come across as a performance brand. They are known as a Luxury brand and should stick to that because it works for them. They make Luxury cars that can be made to look sportier than the basic models (base model converted to F-Sport would be my example) but if I were looking for performance, Lexus wouldn't be the first brand that came to my mind. Now, if I were looking for a Good, Reliable automobile that was Luxurious, Lexus would top my list!

The only constant in life is change and if you don't adapt, you will be gone. That's what Lexus is trying to do now in their adaptation to try and keep the older crowd Happy, while trying to bring in the younger Folks too. It's like anything else in life, it's about balance.

I think that Lexus should stick to what They're good at! The saying: "Dance with the one who brought You to the dance" certainly applies here!

BBQapple

The ES, like most products, is for whoever will buy it. It’s not so much “designed for” a 60 year old but rather they designed and marketed it with that being perhaps the largest circle in a Venn Diagram of multiple demographics and markets.

These days the biggest target is probably “people who want a luxurious cabin and premium styling who favor comfort over performance and who refuse to buy an SUV”

im in my 50s and have been driving cars like this since my late 20s. I want something optimized at getting me around my daily life in comfort and ideally a bit nicer and better than it has to be. When I was a kid my dad had Cadillacs and a friend “borrowed” his dads S500 and I thought somewhere between those two cars lies the perfect car for me. A few years later the Acura Legend was born and that class of autos exploded on the market, and continues to improve.

LexFinally

I pretty much fit your description, except add 10 years. My series of FWD premium Japanese sedans with sporting pretensions started with a '92 4DSC Maxima (with a quick sidelong glance to the Gen 2 Legend and the Gen 2 ES 350 before I pulled the trigger). But the cold reality is that most of the people who want a car of this description now are in your demographic or mine, or older.

bostonsnow

I agree with you all. Its almost as if Lexus is trying to market the car to all ages if they can get away with it, at least for the ES, and maybe the LS too. Ever since the new generation LS came out and was in the movie, its like they are trying to market the LS to all age ranges as well as the ES!

I really dont like the front grill of the 2023 ES, but i'll put up with it as I love the rest of the car. If I could ask Lexus to go re make a brand new version of one of the 3 ES' models I have had, I would ask for the '05 ES again....that was my favorite overall of the three. I can almost even live without all the tech features! or best of all, give me an '05 ES again with some of the new tech features added in!
I'm age 53 by the way.

bostonsnow

I hear you. when in my 20s, I wanted a sporty two-door, hence my 1994 Acura Integra GSR, as I wanted a manual transmission with awesome engine performance. However a friend at the time had a Legend and I really liked that! Once into my thirties, I shifted quickly. I considered a Legend but ended up going to the ES and have stuck with it.

The thing about the lexus range - their are other models that one would think would appeal to the performance oriented, sporty oriented and/or younger generation, which are the IS, the RC, and at the high end the LC. Isnt that enough? Why must they try to adapt the marketing and styling of the ES and LS, making them drive firmer and have a totally modern look too, and try to market sportiness and even performance? I would have thought that the IS and RC/ LC lines are good enough for that segment??

Shaboom

You have great taste for a youngster!😜

LexFinally

I think pretty much everyone agrees that the LS 500 was a costly misfire. Sales, which had become anemic in the final years of the LS 460, tanked entirely with the new car. It's caught in the deadly middle where it's not sporty enough to be sporty, not beautiful enough to be truly trendy, no longer soft or roomy enough for the old LS audience -- and worst of all, both Genesis and Mercedes stepped forward with cars that did all of it better, one with more prestige and the other for less money.

As for the ES, Toyota had legitimate reason for concern that their customer base was getting old and fixin' to die. At the kickoff event in 2018 for this ES generation, the ES brand manager said it outright: "Our customers have grown along with us, and frankly, aged with us." When this generation was launched, the average age of an ES buyer had risen to 67, according to JD Power, 9 years older than buyers of its immediate competitors.

Now I don't have anything against 67-year-old car shoppers (don't ask me why), but brands like Buick have proven it's a perilous long-term business model. They tried to straddle the line with this generation by keeping the familiar styling, comfy ride, physical controls and CD player, while attracting younger intenders with lower, wider proportions, better handling on all versions, and the F Sport variant (also introduced to hang on to GS custoemrs for whom they'd now have nothing to offer). They really didn't have a choice.