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How the single digit car drives the pursuit of perfection
Pinaki Chakravarty

It might cost up to RO18,500, but we’re really down to single digits now. As technology has raced ahead of our physical capabilities, we’ve had to use less and less. We didn’t really need our left leg once we did away with the clutch, and now we might just be on the verge of the single finger car. Why use more? A new breed like the Lexus ES 350 packs more than you ever had. And all you need is a single finger: tap on the touch screen, depress the on/off switch, press for lumbar support.

As we peered through the dashboard screen, looking at a live video wide angle feed of the road behind as we reversed, one thing became clear. This car is challenging the way we look at characteristics that were considered the domain of a few. In the United States, Lexus has turned the tables on competition busy harping on their centuries-old history. The New World didn’t care – they weighed what the car offered against how much it sold for, and now Lexus is one of the highest selling luxury cars in the US. Although Lexus has had phenomenal success in the US within a few years of its introduction in 1989, many say it has been struggling outside North America, including its home country Japan and in particular, Europe. Automotive analysts have pointed out that Lexus has been so successful in America because the wide consumer base of Toyota and in particular the baby boomers wanted something more luxurious as they were becoming older and their surplus incomes were allowing them to migrate to well established European luxury brands. The huge success of Lexus was in part due to the fact that its higher levels of quality and competitive prices enabled it to retain those migrating customers and keep them ‘in the family.’

In the end, though, it’s about road sense, not the vestiges of the past. Walk to the ES and you’ll feel it. You don’t have to unlock the door – it senses when the key is near and unlocks itself. You still have to open the door, though. And then, once inside, you don’t have to fumble around with the key, just rest it anywhere you want and depress the engine starter button. One tap is enough. And one finger.

Manual connoisseurs will find little reason to remain purists. A multi mode automatic transmission gives you enough control for anything you might want. But we’re willing to bet the real draw is the automatic. While cruising in the Lexus comes naturally, and is absolute luxury, the real test comes when you push down hard on the accelerator. Ninety per cent of the automatics on the road will take a deep gasp before shifting down low enough – this is a painful, noisy process as unpleasant for the driver as it seemingly is for the car. The ES doesn’t do this – it follows every increase in pedal pressure with corresponding acceleration. And for a car its size, pegged so high up the ladder, it can move surprisingly like a much smaller, sportier car.

Driving the ES, you’ll be looking for reasons to fault it. You won’t find any. Try it yourself: the Lexus does pretty much anything you ask of it. That includes a ridiculous small turning radius that will threaten to topple miniature hatchbacks – the ES seemingly turns around its rear wheels. It goes with the brand – this luxury branch of Toyota has always been about offe-ring things others didn’t, or doing them better.

A relatively new entrant, Lexus was inspired by the success of the Toyota Supra sports car and the luxury Toyota Cressida models. Both the Supra and Cressida were rear wheel drive cars with a powerful 7M-GE/7M-GTE engine. The first Lexus-badged models, the V-8 powered LS 400 and the smaller, Toyota Camry-based ES 250, appeared in 1989.

Lexus was launched in the US in 1989, and later in the UK, Canada and Australia in 1990. Various theories have arisen as to the origins of the brand name – perhaps the beginnings of the peripheral aura that have come to surround, and even drive, such brands traditionally. An image consulting firm presented a list of 219 names, from which Vectre, Verone, Chaparel, Calibre and Alexis were top candidates. While Alexis quickly became the front runner and later morphed to Lexus, the name has been attributed to the combination of the words ‘luxury’ and ‘elegance.’ According to Toyota, however, the name had no meaning and was just meant to be pleasing and easy to remember. Hunter Communications, the agency who designed the ‘L’ logo and also presented the name to Toyota management, says Lexus was born of the ‘LE’ on the automaker’s luxury edition vehicles, which created the acronym ‘Luxury Edition for the United States’ or ‘LEUS’ with the ‘x’ from ‘luxury’ added to form ‘Lexus’.

Whatever its origins, the name works. But as always with Lexus, it’s the car that speaks more. Take its touch screen menu that leads you to the navigation system, among others. Tap to your destination and a well-appointed lady will guide your through the turns. A lot of other systems could drive you around the bend, with voice instructions as maddeningly irritating as a back seat driver. Just take a wrong turn, or your own decision, and find out. But the LS is a lot more intelligent – if it says go left and you continue straight, it’ll just run with the flow and tell you where you could turn next..