Filed under: Car Buying, Sedan, Lexus, Luxury

More proof that Lexus is a motivated seller when it comes to its 2013 GS 350: the base price of the rear-wheel drive model won’t change from 2011. That means $ 46,900 (plus $ 875 handling) will put you into the comprehensively and vastly improved sedan – or, for any of you who might actually prefer the 2011, it means you can start licking your chops for a screaming deal. The all-wheel drive model, however, has gone up by a modest $ 600 to $ 49,450.

Underneath the redesigned styling of the 2013 GS 350 is a likewise redesigned chassis, suspension and interior that provide a much sportier ride and more room and luxury while enjoying it. Two packages called Premium and Luxury, as well as the F-Sport package, will fill it with further enhancements.

The price of the GS 450h will be revealed at a later date. For now, there’s a press release with all the relevant info on the GS 350 after the jump.

Continue reading Lexus holds steady on price for redesigned GS

Lexus holds steady on price for redesigned GS originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 22 Dec 2011 10:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Hybrid, Sedan, Lexus, First Drives, Luxury

Lexus’ Best Compromise Yet

Ever since the Prius unexpectedly became the Xerox of hybrids and a greenie icon, Toyota has been trying to figure out how to apply the technology to its other models. Its results have been decidedly mixed, nowhere more so than with its luxury lineup. But with the 2013 Lexus GS 450h, Toyota thinks it has finally figured out what a hybrid luxury car should be.

From a sales perspective, the first-generation GS 450h was a disappointment. While we liked it quite a bit when we test-drove it a couple years ago, Lexus just hasn’t been able to move the metal. Introduced to much fanfare in 2006 as a 2007 model, the GS was Lexus’ second hybrid and the first rear-wheel-drive hybrid on the market. Lexus touted it as a performance sedan, even as Toyota was heavily marketing its hybrids as fuel sippers. Whether consumers were confused or not, they never took to the hybrid GS. Sales peaked at just below 1,800 in that first year and have gone down in each successive year. In 2010, Lexus sold barely 300 GS hybrids, roughly four percent of total GS sales, which were about 7,000.

The cognitive dissonance presented by Lexus hybrids has been an issue since the brand launched its first, the 2006 RX 400h SUV. Only marginally more powerful than the standard RX, its improvement in fuel economy was similarly slight at launch. The LS 600hL – the brand’s halo car before the LFA sports car came along – is a six-figure, 20-mile-per-gallon hybrid marketed as having V12 performance with V8 fuel economy, the rough equivalent of ordering a Diet Coke with your Super Size Big Mac Extra Value Meal. The “Lexus Prius” HS 250h, with neither particularly good fuel economy (35 mpg combined) nor any sporting aspirations, has been a critical and sales disaster and is rumored to be on the chopping block. While Toyota’s simple, “better mileage” definition of its hybrids is clear, Lexus has combined green machine and muscle car in varying doses, such that you never quite know what you’ll be getting with a gas-electric Lexus.

Continue reading 2013 Lexus GS 450h [w/video]

2013 Lexus GS 450h [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 30 Dec 2011 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Sedan, Performance, Lexus, New Car Critiques

New Updates Soften Japan’s Super Sedan

Mid-course corrections are a typical occurrence when speaking about high-flying commercial aircraft and oceangoing freighters – both are usually pushed off track by errant winds and strong currents. But when it comes to automobiles, a mid-course correction can be a sign that a thing was wrong the moment a new model was unveiled.

The Lexus IS F was introduced at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show. The compact, high-efficiency sports sedan was a fresh Japanese option to the Audi RS4, BMW M3, Cadillac CTS-V and Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG. However, in spite of a full suite of performance enhancements that lifted it above and well beyond the standard IS, the 416-horsepower rear-wheel-drive sedan arrived lacking the refinement and efficiency to correctly battle its competition.

Lexus reviewed the circumstance, noted it was not on the proper path and made a series of corrections this past year. The 2011 IS-F 4-door boasts a host of improvements, both inside and out, promising a smoother ride, better handling, improved ergonomics and a freshened exterior. So is the Lexus IS F firmly back on track?

Continue reading 2011 Lexus IS F [w/video]

2011 Lexus IS F [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Sedan, Lexus, First Drives, Luxury

If This Is The New Lexus, We Can Stop With The Pejoratives

So Lexus wants to be taken seriously now. Certainly the brand is a heavyweight – and has been since the moment it launched 22 years ago, changing the luxury market almost overnight. It’s just had trouble garnering the respect of the cognoscenti, the car enthusiast types, the sorts of people who can see a pair of taillights flash by and identify year, make and model.

Lexus representatives are not shy about the issue, in part because it’s hard to ignore years of critics calling your cars bland and soulless, while smirking, self-avowed “car guys” trade their BMW sedans in on new BMW sedans, even as they grumble about electronic nannies, iDrive and Chris Bangle.

That’s why Lexus built the LFA supercar, say the company’s flacks, who seem unnaturally willing to admit that previous models were lacking a certain something, having settled upon the word “emotion” as the politically correct way to describe what was wrong with this last generation of Lexus products. But the real reason behind such refreshing, if specious hindsight, is that the Lexus braintrust thinks it has the solution to winning over its detractors in the 2013 Lexus GS 350.

Continue reading 2013 Lexus GS 350

2013 Lexus GS 350 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 23 Nov 2011 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Coupe, Overall performance, Lexus, New Vehicle Evaluations

Can You Overdose On One particular Day With An LFA?

Health care dictionaries define a drug as “any article intended to impact the framework or any operate of the entire body of people.”

The 2012 Lexus LFA is not a supercar, it is a narcotic.

Twist the carbon-fiber key of the Lexus flagship and hear to its race-bred V10 wail. Within seconds of the audio reaching the eardrum, the adrenal glands initialize epinephrine production and endorphins are launched from the pituitary. The result of the normal injection is a much more speedy heartbeat, an improve in blood pressure, involuntary muscle mass leisure/contraction and an overall sensation of properly-becoming – the human entire body turns into more notify, physically stronger and has better vitality. In layman’s phrases… the LFA makes its driver come to feel positively euphoric.

Regrettably, as is the situation with most “come to feel excellent” medicines, the LFA is also extremely behavior-forming and hugely addictive. But Lexus has addressed this concern by ensuring safeguards are in place to prevent abuse. 1st, a individual has to be of authorized driving age to get powering the wheel. Second, the automaker has restricted manufacturing to just 500 units throughout the world (there are only 46 in North The usa right now). Lastly, and this will certainly preserve the contaminants from falling into the mistaken fingers, is that the foundation sticker cost of the carbon-fiber, aluminum and titanium hallucinogenic is a properly-rounded $ 375,000.

Sure, it is not likely that your pals, neighbors or co-workers will overdose on LFA whenever soon.

Keep on reading 2012 Lexus LFA

2012 Lexus LFA at first appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 13 Oct 2011 eleven:57:00 Est. Please see our phrases for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Hybrid, Sedan, Lexus, Luxury

Lexus may have debuted the 2012 GS 350 as part of last week’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance festivities in California, but the automaker isn’t quite done with the rollout of its new rear-wheel-drive sedan. Seen here, Lexus has just released two teasers of two more models in the GS range: the sportier looking F Sport and hybrid-enhanced GS 450h.

Like the rest of Lexus’ F-Sport treatments, we don’t expect the GS F-Sport to be much more than a trim-and-tape job, though some suspension tuning may be in store for this model. It’s been long rumored that Lexus is preparing an honest-to-goodness GS F performance model, so the F Sport trim ought to be similar to what the automaker offers on its smaller IS sedan.

The GS 450h will likely use the same 3.5-liter V6 and electric motor setup that’s found in the current car, though some small massaging should hopefully improve fuel economy ever so slightly. We’ll have the full details on both cars later this year.

Lexus teases GS F-Sport and GS 450h originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Motorsports, Government/Legal, Lexus, Celebrities

We said it once, and we’ll say it again: it’s a good thing racing drivers aren’t required to hold a valid driver’s license in order to race. We know it sounds funny, but if they did, some of our best drivers would be out of work.

The latest high-profile incident, as you may recall, revolves around Kyle Busch. The NASCAR driver was busted back in May behind the wheel of a yellow Lexus LFA, driving 128 mph in a… well, at those speeds, it hardly matters what the posted limit was, but it was a 45 mph zone. At the time, Busch received a citation, but now he’s had his day in court.

So… how did it go for the current Sprint Cup points leader? Not all that well, we’re afraid. Apparently instead of taking Busch’s proven superlative driving skills into account, the judge opted to throw the book at Busch to make an example of him. The champ had his license revoked for 45 days, was fined $1,000, sentenced to 30 days of community service and put under probation for one year.

Do you think the sentence was fair and proportionate to the crime? Cast your vote in our poll below.

View Poll

Kyle Busch loses license for 45 days for speeding in Lexus LFA [w/poll] originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed underneath: Hybrid, Hatchback, Lexus, Evaluations, Luxury

Armchair quarterbacks have been speedy to charge Toyota with dropping its engineering nerve, labeling it a brand name material to churn out safe and sound, middle-of-the-street milquetoast offerings for each section in which it competes. Admittedly, this is not the same business that as soon as marketed a supercharged, mid-engined, rear-wheel-generate minivan shaped like a suppository, nor is it the identical organization that offered homologated rally specials alongside its workaday iron. But to say that there are no bold spirits in Toyota Metropolis just ain’t so – just glimpse at the bonkers LFA supercar, for goodness’ sake.

But you needn’t have a millionaire’s bankbook to see that the Japanese automaker even now has cheek to spare – just examine out the 2011 Lexus CT 200h. Not only is Toyota’s top quality marque dipping its toes into America’s compact high end market – a section that no person but Mini has figured out how to make big dollars on – it’s carrying out so with a hybrid, an costly powertrain configuration that, Prius aside, only sells in marginal volumes.

Admittedly, Lexus has produced no bones about the simple fact that it’s squarely targeting Europe with the CT (a marketplace where hatchbacks consistently do big organization and “modest premium” is not an oxymoron), but make no error, this is a brave wager. Lexus says it is gunning for 1,000 units a month – a modest amount in the grand scheme of points – but it’s expecting the moon when compared to rivals like the Audi A3, BMW one Sequence and Volvo C30, which normally promote in the hundreds per month. Yet this daring wager is showing early indicators of having to pay off. Thank you in element to large superior marketing, Lexus cleared its decks of above twice that a lot of models in March – 2,199 – the CT’s first month on sale.

Continue reading 2011 Lexus CT 200h…

Pictures copyright (C)2011 by Chris Paukert /AOL

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2011 Lexus CT 200h at first appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Sedan, Lexus, Reviews, Luxury

A Vanilla Sport Sedan In Need Of Some More Sprinkles

Your available options in the entry-level luxury sedan segment rival the variety found at your local Baskin-Robbins. Interested in all-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive or front-wheel drive? Nearly every automaker has you covered. Want to row your own gears, or sit back and let the silicon chippery do the work? The car of your dreams awaits. There’s an option for all of us, and if you prefer a good vanilla to rocky road, then you’re going to love the 2011 Lexus IS250 AWD.

Continue reading Review: 2011 Lexus IS250 AWD…

Photos copyright (C)2011 Jeff Glucker / AOL

Continue reading Review: 2011 Lexus IS 250 AWD

Review: 2011 Lexus IS 250 AWD originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Etc., Marketing/Advertising, Lexus, Celebrities

Lexus is serious about food. The automaker sponsors Bravo’s popular Top Chef Masters television series, and now it’s decided to form a culinary dream team of its own. The luxury marque has announced the creation of the Lexus Culinary Masters, and its roster is filled with world-renowned restaurateurs and a couple of Iron Chef mainstays.

Making their debut team appearance at the Pebble Beach Food & Wine Festival will be the following celebrity chefs:

• Michael Symon
• Masaharu Morimoto
• Daniel Boulud
• Michael Ciarello
• Dean Fearing
• Christopher Kostow

The festival begins on April 28 and runs through May 1. As you might have guessed, Lexus is the main sponsor of the Pebble Beach Food & Wine Festival, and its Culinary Masters team will hold a series of tasting events over the course of the event. Of course, Lexus won’t just gather up these sharp knives for just one event – it vows to include them in “multiple initiatives, including Lexus customer appreciation programs, charitable outreach, and multimedia productions.”

Click past the jump to read the full press-release.

[Source: Lexus]

Continue reading Today’s Iron Chef Ingredient: Lexus?

Today’s Iron Chef Ingredient: Lexus? originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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