Originally Posted by AJT123

Ohhh I think Toyota is developing a new V8 for this. Like...?

Originally Posted by AJT123

Ohhh I think Toyota is developing a new V8 for this. Like I said, CAFE is gutted like a fish... We will probably get some good engines back, less hybrid crap. If they were in development of a new V8 and canceled it a couple years back or whatever, surely they can continue where they left off and finish it.

Surely to GOD they wouldn't only offer this V8 in only ONE car (assuming LC gets axed).

I feel like we already went through this maybe?

Originally Posted by Striker223

It would be the funniest thing ever if it's a V6 in the production car

Originally Posted by AJT123

Great!!! Let's get a brand new LS going, do what Genesis did ethos-wise with their luxury sedans and give it a killer V8. Then it wouldn't be worth killing, and sales will rise.

While we're at it, let's drop it into the LX and GX too... a detuned version or whatever.

Originally Posted by Toys4RJill

LS should be a big electric car. Period.

And LX should have a top spec EV like the Rivian or the G wagon electric. Big land crusier too

Originally Posted by AJT123

. A new LS would surely fail if EV only.t.

Originally Posted by Motorola

I don't think it's a tinfoil hat theory at all. Akio has made it clear that he despises how the American public originally perceived the Toyota name (and thus his family name and heritage) as "not being good enough" for them before Lexus was created. He's now trying to overcompensate for that by diminishing Lexus as a brand globally and giving more credence to Crown and Century. Even within the Lexus brand, he is trying to inject his own name and involvement into it, like the LBX Morizo RR - Morizo is Akio's racing nickname and RR is a GR sub-brand, which runs under Toyota. Someone who actually cares about the brand and didn't want to inflate their own ego would have just simply called it the LBX F. We're now seeing the same thing happen with this new vehicle, which Akio desperately wants to be tied to the GR brand and his family name. The warning signs came years ago when the 5th generation GS was cancelled and repurposed into the Toyota Mirai, and then later the Crown sedan.

And as petty as this all sounds, it's actually a very sensible move on Toyota's part to shift the focus away from Lexus and into GR and Crown and Century. I've been saying this for years (and it appears Toyota agrees with me based on its current actions), but Lexus's biggest flaw is that it started out as a brand targeting specifically the American market, and thus had difficult penetrating other global markets and even failed to be recognized as its own brand in its own home country in Japan, where Crown and Century have been storied nameplates for decades before Lexus even existed. Now that the American market has become less relevant on the global stage, it makes sense that Toyota would divert its energy into the brands that are already successful in Japan, and most importantly China, where Crown and Century are also more established than Lexus. We're also seeing Toyota slowly rebranding the Lexus brand into something more China-centric, as we just saw with the new ES - but this takes a lot of time and it would just be easier for them to divert more resources to their sub-brands that are already more successful and established in China. Current affairs in the US making it more isolationist will only further accelerate this plan to minimize Lexus in favor of Crown and Century.

The one thorn on Toyota's side is the incredibly powerful Lexus US dealership lobby, who has been pushing for the brand's halo cars and ultimately the Lexus brand's relevance. They rebadged the LFR as a Lexus in a private presentation to their members, and pushed for the IS500 and TX to be made in the first place. If not for them, I feel like Akio would have tried to cripple the Lexus brand in the US to an even higher degree.

Originally Posted by AJT123

Electric cars are dead. Or at best, niche products. 8.7% of 2024 new cars. Will never top 12%, let alone 15% and beyond. A new LS would surely fail if EV only.

LS needs a great V8 back. It was always known for it.

Originally Posted by Toys4RJill

LS should be a big electric car. Period.

And LX should have a top spec EV like the Rivian or the G wagon electric. Big land crusier too

Originally Posted by Framestead

Truthfully, it would be nice to have, but I doubt a new large sedan from Lexus is going to cure the segment woes. Mercedes owns that segment for better or worse, and lets not get into how much each sedan needs on the incentive side. They will and are trying to launch a new replacement cuv, which should have been out yesterday like the lf1, but as with anything, upper management saw lexus and paused to write that check.

Originally Posted by Framestead

On a side note, I like how the Toyota GT is wearing camo with spindle grills designed in all over. Wow just wow?

Originally Posted by Striker223

Yeah.....and?

Faster is faster and you can get the engagement like Lambo did with an NA V12 or Zonda with a manual trans but Toyota won't do anything that crazy. That or strip sound dreading out and make the car punishing/"sporty" with no correlation to speed, that's cheap and anyone can do that. Slap a special edition label or "track ready" on that and charge more for the privilege of the factory stripping the interior for you.

In some people's opinion GT3 doesn't sound that good unless you are sending it and a few seconds of that is 100+ so that defeats your statement of avoiding 100+ speeds to feel something. It's stuff and harsh at low speeds sure but that's just annoying to live with vs a Turbo S that also happens to outperform it while being a better car day to day.

Full on race cars or track only stuff is way different than any street car

EDIT: Honestly just put a manual in it, that's the answer to engagement for near every car.