LEXUS LS400
BUILD THE BEST CAR in the world. That was the brief from Toyota president, Eiji Toyoda, to a crack team of 4000 highly talented staff for the new ‘Circle F’ project – ‘F’ standing for ‘flagship’. It was August 1983. By 1991, that team could lay claim to a brimming trophy cabinet including Wheels Car of the Year after it achieved the unthinkable: it beat the Germans with the ground-breaking Lexus LS400.
“As a luxury car it’s almost faultless,” said our introduction to our 1991 Wheels COTY. Editor Phil Scott described the LS400 as, “The closest automotive equivalent to a Rolex watch there is.” Other judges from our 1991 COTY were just as effusive. These included Michael Stahl, who said, “Hadn’t expected the communicative ride and steering or the Lexus’s road-holding abilities.” Legendary racer Kevin Bartlett described the four-speed as, “The best automatic I’ve ever driven.”
Circle F achieved the inconceivable for a Japanese carmaker: it cracked the US luxury market. Jaguar had waned. Audi was on the up but not yet in BMW’s
