Lexus celebrates thirty years of business this year and, to commemorate the anniversary, it is presenting the LF-30 show car at the Tokyo Motor Show, a vision of how mobility could evolve in a decade. Auto&Design was able to see a preview of the fruit of this imaginative process at ED2, Toyota’s Europe Design Center, with headquarters in Nice, where the car was created. “It’s a special event for us”, explained Hideaki Iida, Assistant Chief Designer for exteriors at Lexus. “It’s the first time that Lexus has created a concept that doesn’t anticipate a future standard model but explores innovative solutions untied from productive logics”.
“From the point of view of style”, said Ian Cartabiano, President and Director of Design at ED2, “this LF-30 represents something new. Electric, with solid state batteries and four electric motors, it has a body that develops along the entire length of the vehicle and wheels placed at the four corners. The car combines sporty shapes at the front with those of a more spacious and comfortable model at the rear. The result is a defined profile with a single line that rises from the front end to the height of the D pillar and then slopes back down to give the tail a suggestive drop shape. At the front, everything hinges on the shape of the central zone, which recalls, in its definition of volumes, the classic “hourglass” grille that is typical of the brand. But, it replaces the grille with a closed surface, which merges with the rest of the bodywork”.
Onboard, on the other hand, there is an ample passenger compartment with four single seats inspired by two complementary concepts. There is the driver’s area, which is more contained and “driver-oriented”, in which the designers aimed to maximise involvement in driving, and there is an area dedicated to the front passenger, which is more comfortable and spacious, inspired by first class airline companies. The designers also wanted to create a spacious and welcoming environment at the back, which, thanks to the adoption of wood and Alcantara, recalls the living room of a house.
