“I want to challenge your perception of what a luxury brand can be.” Simon Humphries, Chief Branding Officer and head of design in the Toyota group, thus introduces “Discover”, a journey to explore the new aesthetic and formal direction of design for Lexus. The creation of Century – that has become a brand at the peak of the Japanese group – allows for unheard-of explorations for Lexus, that Humphries does not hesitate to define “adventurous and innovative with the explicit goal of helping our customers discover a new luxury lifestyle”.
Luxury sedan
Much more than a declaration of intent: this is demonstrated by the models unveiled by Lexus at the Tokyo Mobility Show, fruit of the joint effort of all Toyota design centres worldwide. Surprising above all others is the LS Concept, a hypothetical flagship model of the marque. Since the first LS was launched, in 1989, the acronym has always meant ‘luxury sedan’, “it was the age in which executive sedans dominated that market segment – now they are fighting a losing battle against SUVs and people desire different experiences”, Humphries explains again.
The changement into a people carrier
And so the LS becomes Luxury Space. With a quantum leap into modernity, the flagship of the range changes into a people carrier dominated by geometrical forms inspired by urban architecture. A living space on wheels (these are actually six, with the rear ones of small diameter to reduce the interior encumbrance and allow an easy on-board access), that opens laterally to teleport the occupants into a private space, a home extension with bamboo walls and mother-of-pearl inlays.
Japan-France collaboration
The request to come up with such a vehicle came directly from Akio Toyoda, chairman of the Toyota group, and whose indications guided the research of the team led by Koichi Suga, general manager of Lexus design, operating in Japan at the Shimoyama technical centre, with the help of the Toyota Europe Design Development (EDD) studio, located near Nice, France, and directed by Lance Scott.
Calty’s concept cars
The other three Lexus novelties in Tokyo – the LS Coupé Concept, the Lexus Sport Concept and the LS Micro Concept – were instead created in collaboration with California. Ian Cartabiano, President of Calty Design Research, Toyota/Lexus Advanced Design, explains how innovation guided each project, starting from the super-identifiable Lexus “spindle grille”. “We designers always try to make it evolve. On the LS Coupé Concept we used light to mark it with highly graphic instances, pushing the day lights to the corners of the front. Personally I also really love the rear view with the lines of the light that frame the tail”, he says whilst indicating the rectangle from where the boot is extracted like a drawer.
A challenge to conventions
The inside offers the space of a luxury sedan furnished with a contemporary taste: “The dashboard is extremely clean, we have avoided the accumulation of screens in favour of a beautiful sculpture”, says Cartabiano. Even here, the environment is made welcoming by the bamboo, a signature material for the new Lexus, sustainable and with an oriental touch. Access is through a dome that slides upward along a diagonal, “we were inspired by a jewellery box”, he concludes.
(Full article in A&D no. 276)
