Another electrifying challenge for the Lexus. Much the way it was years ago (albeit on a different scale) when Toyota launched its new brand with the refined LS 400 saloon. That was quickly followed by the GS 300 which met with equal success.
However while the heady climate of expectation and ambition at the time of that first launch masked natural doubts and triggered well-justified apprehensions in the hearts of the Toyota management, the trial that now faces the compact IS 200 saloon is in many respects less arduous and less intimidating.
Even so the new model has set itself an ambitious target and there is no lack of obstacles in its chosen path. It is, after all, facing a very different environment. In just a very few years the Lexus brand has carved out for itself a well-earned niche in the car market, where it is both well-known and well-liked, having acquired far greater credibility and prestige than anyone expected at its birth, despite its aristocratic background.
In the case of its two previous models, both carefully targeted, the battlefield appointed for the Lexus was the American market and it is no coincidence that both were designed and developed by Calty Design in Newport Beach, California under Kazuo Morohoshi, a designer of vast international culture (who has now returned to the fold after spending some time in charge of Toyota’s central design division).
By contrast, Europe is the main market selected for the new IS 200, a mission clearly proclaimed by its shape, styling, rear wheel drive architecture and sporty performance. And the IS 200 is the first rear-wheel drive car to be produced by Lexus.
At a meeting in London, project manager Nobuaki Katayama described the IS 200 to the European press as “an individual, athletic saloon” and in emphasising its distinctive character went on to say, without false modesty, that it was destined to become “our best seller and the flagship of our brand identity on the roads of Europe”.
A few days later the IS 200 made its debut at the Birmingham Motor Show where it received a warm welcome from its first European audience.
The article continues in Auto & Design no. 113
