Lexus Might Replace Its F Sports Cars With Just One Sad Little Button
- A senior Lexus boss hinted the F-branded hero car era may be ending.
- Takashi Watanabe said Lexus is exploring new ways to attract buyers.
- He added driving fun remains vital for Lexus, possibly via software.
It appears that Lexus might be ready to hang up the gloves on its standalone “F” performance badge, at least for now. According to a recent report, future cars from the marque’s performance-division may evolve from dedicated BMW M rivals to simple driving modes inside electric and hybrid models.
If you’ve ever loved the rumble of the RC F or the shriek of the LFA, this news might sting. These cars defined what Lexus could do when it locked horns with the likes of BMW M and Mercedes‑AMG, proving that there was more to the Lexus brand than luxury and refinement.
Related: Toyota And Lexus Confirm New V8 For Their Next Sports Cars
Lexus President Takashi Watanabe told Australia’s Drive that F cars’ “fun-to-drive, emotional aspect is still very important to us.” But he went on to make clear that Lexus has plenty of other ideas about how to boost its image and attract customers besides shaving tenths off its cars’ lap times.
“At the same time … we’re going to also be expanding the way in which we’re trying to provide different value to different customers,” he explained. “Sports will be one of them, obviously, and you might see a mix; things that you haven’t seen before.”
Thinking outside the box, and about a box
Lexus certainly had a few things to show us at the recent Japan Mobility Show that we hadn’t seen before, including a crazy six-wheel LS minivan – whose steering wheel contained an ‘F’ button, a possible indicator of where the sub-brand is heading.
“One thing the brand is very well aware of is, up until now, the traditional F has been really associated with hardware, or hard parts – suspension components, shock absorbers, springs, etc,” Watanabe said.
“But, as we move into the future, we’re going to be going to SDVs, software-defined vehicles. That’s also going to add a new element to this whole thing – how are we going to provide the value through advanced technology?”
F reduced to a button, FFS
That thinking seems to extend directly to the brand’s recent concepts, where performance may be defined more by code than by components.
“The button you saw on the [concept’s] steering wheel sort of represents also a possible evolution forward, where F-Mode is being expressed through software, but we’re still touching upon the sportiness of the brand. That’s another example of where we could go.”
Watanabe didn’t explicitly rule out using the F badge on a performance machine again – the upcoming LFR supercar would be a prime candidate – but said he had no “specific type of a product plan” for F cars.
“We’re not going to be constrained, we’re not going to dictate ‘it has to be like an F car’ or something like that,” he explained. “It’s gonna be, you know, we want to provide this, and this is the shape that it turned in, this is the end result – then we decide.”
The Auto World
Comments
Post a Comment