2000 Lexus Rx300 on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Lexus LC 500 stands apart from the go-fast sport luxury crowd

We at Autoblog, by and large, love the LC 500. For its concept-car looks, derived almost verbatim from the 2012 LF-LC concept. And for the charming V8, which growls and burbles appropriately but doesn't subscribe to the faux-backfire trend. Our Editor-in-Chief, Greg Migliore, perfectly summarized the LC 500's appeal when he drove it recently: "Evening walkers cast curious glances. A guy in an old pickup almost sideswiped me as he gawked while taking the corner fast. It's a celebrity car. It also sounds good; the 5.0-liter V8 growls and rumbles. Style and muscle. An excellent execution." I just spent a week in it, my first encounter with the car, and it made me think most about how it's positioned in the Lexus lineup. Notably, it's not positioned as the performance extreme. This is refreshing, because not every car needs to attempt a Nurburgring time. If you want to hunt road-course records in this day and age, it takes massive power and massive traction. We're getting to the point, perhaps well beyond it, where that is doing the stopwatch more favors than the driver. Part of this is decades of marketing putting the sportiest variant of a particular vehicle above the most luxurious in the pecking order of regular vehicles, which doesn't make a ton of sense if you think about it. In the 1960s, the ultimate Mercedes-Benz was the 600 Grosser limousine, which was built like a Rolex bank vault. It had a huge engine, but the point was to move the massive thing around, not for the sheer pleasure of it. Ironically, the Grosser's engine made its way later into the 300 SEL 6.3, turning a large and luxurious sedan into a surprisingly capable bruiser, and then into the Rote Sau race car. Arguably, this was an impetus for the sort of sporty arms race I'm decrying. (Now, when you talk about supercars, or ultimate luxury cars like a Bentley or Maybach, this distinction makes less sense. But let's limit our discussion to vehicles the well-heeled average consumer could actually purchase — things at the upper end of the ranges of normal car manufacturers.) This takes us to the Lexus LC 500. Unlike Mercedes, whose Mercedes-AMG cars are on top of the regular car pecking order, Audi's RS line, BMW's M Division, and Porsche's various Turbos, the LC 500 is simply a large, powerful car. It's comfortable, it looks interesting, and it has more than enough grunt to get out of its own way. There are Sport and Performance options packages, but there's no LC F or F-Line trim available.

Lexus trademarks enigmatic LX 600 nameplate

An American trademark filing suggests Lexus is about to expand its lineup of SUVs with a range-topping model named LX 600. The new nameplate asks many more questions than it answers. Discovered by AutoGuide, the filing seemingly corresponds to a stronger evolution of the Toyota Land Cruiser-based LX 570 that currently occupies the top spot in the Lexus SUV hierarchy. LX is, of course, the model, while 570 denotes the presence of a 5.7-liter V8 under the hood. By that logic, an LX 600 should have a 6.0-liter engine, and very likely a V8; we can't imagine Lexus selling an LX with 10 or 12 cylinders, for better or worse, and a 6.0-liter V6 would be a mammoth of an engine. One of the question marks hovering around the filing is whether 600 actually corresponds to the engine's displacement. There isn't a 5.0-liter V8 between the LS 500's fenders; it's powered by a twin-turbocharged, 3.5-liter V6. Carmakers are moving away from large-displacement engines to comply with looming emissions norms, and Toyota is on the front lines, so the theory of a 6.0-liter V8 in a Lexus flagship — even one that's relatively old-school — struggles to hold water. An earlier report claims the next-generation Toyota Land Cruiser will ditch its V8 in favor of the aforementioned V6, and it might be available with the LS 500h's gasoline-electric hybrid powertrain. The LX has always been nearly identical to the Land Cruiser in the engine bay, so it will likely surf the downsizing wave, too. Our intuition tells us 600 is too high for the base model, and the flagship hybrid would logically be dubbed 600h. Here again, we've reached a body-on-frame cul-de-sac. We can't forget about the possibility that Lexus will not slap the LX 600 nameplate on anything. Automakers routinely trademark names to protect them without planning on using them. The company hasn't commented on the trademark filings, and it hasn't shed light on the next-generation LX, so the speculation will continue until official information emerges. It's tentatively scheduled to make its debut in 2021, and arrive in showrooms in 2022, about a year after the new Land Cruiser. Featured Gallery 2019 Lexus LX 570 View 42 Photos Auto News Lexus SUV Luxury

Toyota investing $750M, adding 600 jobs at 5 U.S. plants

BUFFALO, W.Va. — Toyota on Thursday announced it is investing an additional $750 million at five U.S. plants that will bring nearly 600 new jobs, including the production of two hybrid vehicles for the first time at its Kentucky facility. It marks yet another expansion of the Japanese automaker's U.S. presence, bringing to nearly $13 billion the amount it will spend by 2021. The latest investments are at facilities in Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee and West Virginia. Those same facilities were part of a 2017 announcement by Toyota for a $374 million investment to support production of its first American-made hybrid powertrain. Toyota Motor North America CEO Jim Lentz said the latest investments "represent even more examples of our long-term commitment to build where we sell. By boosting our U.S. manufacturing footprint, we can better serve our customers and dealers and position our manufacturing plants for future success with more domestic capacity." Toyota's Georgetown, Kentucky, facility will get a $238 million infusion to produce hybrid versions of Lexus ES 300 sedans starting in May and the Rav4 SUV starting in January 2020, the company announced. It also includes $288 million to increase annual engine capacity at Toyota's Huntsville, Alabama, facility. The plant will add 450 jobs to accommodate new four-cylinder and V6 engine production lines. Last year Toyota and Mazda announced plans to build a $1.6 billion joint-venture plant in Huntsville that will eventually employ about 4,000 people. Toyota also is spending $62 million on equipment to boost production of Toyota and Lexus cylinder heads at its Bodine Aluminum facility in Troy, Missouri, as part of its cost-saving New Global Architecture production strategy to share common parts and components among different vehicles. A $50 million expansion and equipment upgrade at its Bodine plant in Jackson, Tennessee, will add 13 jobs and produce engine blocks while doubling the capacity of hybrid transaxle cases and housings. And Toyota will add 123 jobs and spent $111 million to expand its plant and purchase equipment in Buffalo, West Virginia, to double the capacity of hybrid transaxles. Previously, Toyota also announced a $600 million investment at its Princeton, Indiana, plant to increase the capacity of its Highlander SUV and to incorporate the new production strategy, and $170 million to launch the 2020 Corolla on a new production line in Blue Springs, Mississippi.