Next LS needs to go back to the “old man’s car” roots. I need an affordable car that I can afford when I retire and will last.

 

An old man car in 2024 is a crossover for ease of ingress and egress.

The LS and probably IS are not long for this world. The ES sells well enough and shares a platform with the Camry that I could see it continuing a while longer.

 

The next ES will move upmarket to $70K like the RX and kill whatever incentive is left for layman to buy the LS, just like it did to the GS. In fact, if Lexus truly wanted to boost LS sales, they should have killed the ES long ago instead of making it even larger to the point where it has more interior space than an LS... of course they would never do that because the ES is their bread and butter sedan.

 

it’s not gone it just won’t load for some reason. Have to click the link. And it’s not junk!!!! It’s excitement about what the Lexus LS might look like. Join the party 🥳🥳🎉

 

this “old man’s car” “boring” “sporty” nonsense needs to be thrown in the trash. They mean NOTHING. This was Akio Toyoda’s hang up. He heard some useless bar-fly saying Toyota’s were “boring” and the air between his ears translated that as lexus buyers must want piped in engine noise, rougher riding suspensions and loud exhausts. WE DON’T. WE NEVER DID. Lexus got it right the first time: the PASSIONATE PURSUIT OF PERFECTION. That means a perfect smooth ride. A perfect reliability record. Perfect performance credentials. Perfect handling scores. Perfect luxurious credentials. That’s the PURSUIT: the fastest, quietest, most luxurious, nimble, smoothest most reliable car on the planet. Lexus needs to continue to leave the frumpy styling of the past in the past as they perfect their pursuit of perfection; without any of the useless phrases I mention in the onset.

 

The car was never any of those things. What made the car great was that it was so capable in so many ways, but it was never the best at any one thing.

The reality is the world is different now. A sedan like the LS has to force a name for itself in some way to stand out, because the buyer who wants a very generally competent luxury vehicle buys a crossover.

Why do you think the 7 series is so polarizing? The image conscious will always buy the S Class but everything else needs to make a statement for why it should exist at this point. Making the LS another capable but forgettable car won’t sell cars.

 

The passionate PURSUIT of perfection

 

What does that even mean? It’s just marketing speak.

What perfection was in 1999 is totally different than what it is in 2024. If the LS was made with the same recipe it was made with then today nobody would buy it.

 

i explained exactly what it would mean in my comment

 

“it should be the best at everything” isn’t any more interesting than renders made by people that have nothing to do with Lexus lol

For one, it’s impossible. What is “the perfect ride?” “The perfect performance?” A car that would be “the best on the planet” at all those things wouldn’t be affordable by any of us for one. Affordability is a huge part of the LS’s ethos.

I think if they are going to keep the LS, it has to turn the world on its head again in some way. Is it an EV that has the longest range and fastest charging in a traditional luxury package? Just building another “S Class Competitor” isn’t going to do it.

I think BMW has done it with the 7, that is legitimately a car that someone would buy over an S Class if it spoke to them.

 

Giant wheels, zero sidewall slits for glass no one can seriously think a production car will look anywhere near like that. Plus it is not from Lexus which makes it irrelevant.

 

Personally I don’t think the LS can be redeemed. It’s never going to be the scrappy upstart alternative that is so incredibly competent you couldnt ignore it like it was.

 

And nobody but the kool-aid drinkers at the corporate retreat seriously believes any company, let alone Lexus, is ever going to achieve those things.

Like every other car ever produced, the Lexus LS has always made compromises somewhere. It's never been all the things you say it should be or has been, and it never will be.

 

What’s interesting is out of all the LSs I had, the best one is the one that sold the least, my 2017 LS460L.

If you asked out of all the cars I’ve had which one is the best car, it’s the one I’m driving. People aren’t going to start buying the LS again because it’s a great car, it needs to command attention.

 

ill say it again.
That’s the PURSUIT: the fastest, quietest, most luxurious, nimble, smoothest most reliable car on the planet.

in many ways ​ (except for reliability) ​​​​​​it’s the same attributes that caused the Tesla model s to rate so high that it broke Consumer Reports rating system. I don’t know to what nth degree you want to question what “what” means but the standards that have defined and distinguished between good and bad qualitatively and quantitatively in the auto industry are not some abstract unknowable mystery. And they are timeless.