I liked the outgoing generation ES and wondered what the new generation would look like. When the new ES finally came out, I was a little cold to the styling in the pictures that I saw. I thought it looked awkward from those angles.

But now I have been seeing many new ES350s in my area. Each time, I take notice how beautiful the car really is. The styling on the new ES is so smooth and attractive! The transitions from the front to the back are very clean and soft. Today I saw one in red in a parking lot and I noticed the awesome paint quality too! I just wanted to take a moment to recognize the styling and congratulate (and envy ) everyone lucky enough to have one .

What are your opinions on the styling of the ES?

 

Absolutely agree, none of the pictures I have seen do the justice to this car styling!!! I lot of the Lexus "advertisment" pictures are stretched out. Than, other pictures with a bad lighting can't really give you a good feel for a color. And, as you mentioned, depending on the angle - its hard to capture that 3D slickness of the lines. You have to see one in person to really appreciate it!!!! In my eyes, it looks very slick and sporty!!!

 

Absolutely agree also. The new 2007 ES 350 is beautiful, sultry, seductive, mesmerizing and just plain drop dead gorgeous. The ES has definitely come a long way since the beginning when it started as the ES 250, ES 300, ES 330 and finally the ES 350...

 

It's nice, I like it a lot more than the previous one & yes it looks very good in that Ruby Red paint, I' ve seen it in person

 

I brought my wifes car in for service today and while driving back I was checking out all the other cars, when all of a sudden this stunning red sedan caught my eye & in that split second moment I thought that was one of the most gorgous cars I've ever seen. So you can imagine my delite when I realized that it was my wife driving my car ...

 

Everytime I see my car, i fall in love with it all over again. Today, for the first time, I saw another MSM ES350 parked on the street. Driving by I kinda saw my car from a 3rd person view. I said "wow....so this is how others see my ride". Lemme tell ya... The ES350 is great looking, but most importantly, the ride is smooooooooooooooooooooth.

 

It's cliche, but pictures really do not do this car justice. It is eye-catching in real life while all the pictures I have seen make it look very average.

 

I personally think with this new design, the average age of ES drivers (ES350) will go down by a decade!!! No offense to anybody in upper age categories Just based on my personal observation, I hardly seen anybody on the road driving ES300/330 below 40. As a matter of fact, I read a lot of the comments about it being 40+ for people who were looking for more affordable luxury to upgrade their Honda/Toyota/Nissan. I mentioned it numeour times here, I wasn't even considering ES because of its styling and was leaning more in favor of TL. BUT, everything has changed with ES350. It does its magic by bringing in younger crowd and also making older crowd feel younger while driving it

Way to go LEXUS!!!

 

i always wonder where the younger folks get their money to buy luxury cars. Albeit this is an entry luxury, but with taxes and licensing it can easily go over $40k. I have a co-worker who only cares about monthly payments....like "Oh i can afford $600 a month, so i'll go luxury". I guess it's the accountant in me that want to teach these young people how to manage their finances. I saved up for this new car, and didn't want to deal with financing. Here in LA, people are driving cars that they can't afford anyway.... so I think I'm a minority in my views.

 

A lot of people over-extend themselves when it comes to cars. I read somewhere that the rule of thumb is the MSRP on your car should equal 1/3 of your gross annual income. If that's the case, I'm in trouble! Gotta love living in America for the leasing concept!

What I love here in our area is when you see kids driving around in luxury cars and they are parked outside their 1-room apartment that they share with 5 people.

 

Kaius88, my bizarro brother, it makes two of us!!!

I also see a number of 18-year old kids in the neighborhood driving IS250/350 or BMW M3 or MB E-class. I guess you don't choose your parents, and if they are loaded with ca$h - kids get anything they want. I have no problem with that, its the attitude they are driving with, blasting the music and speeding around our townhouse development where speed limit is 25 mph and lots of little kids playing around. They also cause a lot accidents on our roads while driving drunk. They do not appreciate what they have because they never had to work for their money, everything comes too easy for them. Very sad...

We also have another group of people that only care about the brand name. So, they go to car auctions to buy Lexus/Mercedes/BMW with hundreds thousands of miles on it just so they can drive a car with a label.

 

"...so I think I'm a minority in my views."

Minority, yes, the only one, no. I've had the $ to go luxury 20 years ago, but could never justify it to myself. When I was 26 I opened my own restaurant and could afford it, but working 7 days a week didn't leave much time for cruisin so I invested instead. When I sold my place I moved to Maui and never lived more than 3 miles from work. And as a single guy you don't want a luxury car as your only car w/ the beach and camping trips. But now that I'm married, paid-off the mortgage & (gulp) 49, when I saw the 350 at the Chicago auto show (on-line) and read up on it, well there was no doubt about it. I was a kid in the candy store...please mister, give me the red one!!!

 

Well you may in the minority, but you are not alone. We payed cash for my 4Runner in 2004 and for my wife's 2007 Camry.

Guess we could have paid more or made payments but to me it's not an investment. It loses value the minute you drive it off the lot and is then subject to any number of ******** out there who want to key or ding it. Let's face it, vehicles to many people are "status" symbols and words like saving and investing are not in their vocabulary.