Which Model Is the Flagship Lexus?
I just read the following headline: “Lexus flagship: A car or a haven?” And I honestly didn’t know which car they were referring to.
I computed the words “Lexus flagship.” BeepBopBeepBeep. Two cars raced directly to the forefront of my crowded mind: the RX and the LS. And they’re still kind of racing.
It turns out the headline is for another solid LS460 review, but I’m still stuck on the idea of which car is Lexus’s signature model. Is it the LS, the car that started it all? Or is it the RX, the company’s bread and butter?
Sure, the LS started as the company’s flagship. Intentionally so. A boat load of money was put into the project, which “began in 1983 as the F1 project, the code name for a secret flagship sedan.”
Flagship sedan. That’s wikipedia folks, that’s common knowledge. And it’s not like the car hasn’t gotten better throughout each successive generation.
But let’s be realistic, the car that Lexus really sells, like hotcakes, is the RX. Just look at the year to date numbers from March: 1,848 LS models compared to 22,236 RXs. You can clearly see how much more important the RX is to the LS. Especially if we’re talking about keeping the factory doors open.
And the doors have been much more widely swung since 1998, when the RX defined the luxury crossover segment.
But is that what a flagship car is all about?
