The LEXUS Story
“F1”. That is the code name that introduced Lexus to the world. Honda, Toyota, and Nissan have one thing in common: they are not known for luxury. Honda moved in this direction with the creation of Acura in 1986, Nissan with the creation of Infiniti in late 1989, and so Toyota recognized the opportunity they were missing out on. Lexus was created in 1989 due to Toyota starting a new sedan class for their lineup—this time with a new name plate and badge.
Lexus had their sights on the big European luxury car brands, BMW and Mercedes, and strived to show that Japanese automakers could play in this game of luxury and be innovative while doing so. After coming up with different names from an image firm (Vectre, Verone, Calibre just to name a few), they settled on “Alexis” but changed it to apply less to a person’s name, and so “Lexus” was born.
The team at Toyota got to work immediately by coming up with cars that are iconic to the brand today: The LS being the flagship sedan, the GS being a midsize sedan alternative, and even the SC being a rear-wheel-drive coupe. They did not just stop in the car market, however, by diving into the full-size SUV market as well with the LX, midsize SUV with the GX, and the midsize Crossover badged the RX. In 1991, Lexus had outsold both BMW and Lexus as the #1 import luxury car manufacturer in the United States, showing how hard work truly pays off. They were not finished there and ended up selling their 1-millionth vehicle in 1999— a Millenium Silver RX300.