Styling Class

Chief designer of the new LS, Koichi Suga, offers some insights into how Lexus styles its cars.

- Daryl Lee

The limited-run LFA supercar did much to quash the belief that Lexus is only interested in customers who are rapidly ageing businessmen.

The fact that Lexus cars post-LFA were also styled with more panache and a new angular styling language underpinned by what the Japanese carmaker calls a “spindle grille” also helped. One of the people responsible for this design revolution is Koichi Suga, the lead designer of the fifth-generation LS limousine, among others. Suga joined Toyota (the parent company of Lexus) in 1988, roughly when the first-generation LS made its debut.

That model shocked the car world, mainly for how a Japanese carmaker – then seen only as capable of producing budget cars in the West – had the audacity to challenge the Germans in a segment they all but dominated.

The fourth-generation LS, however, was deeply underwhelming, something that can be squarely blamed on its incredibly long 10-year life span, which began in 2007.

On the other hand, it did have quality and craftsmanship, something that has been the model’s, and indeed, the brand’s watchwords ever since the beginning, though in today’s world, that’s not quite enough.

Says Suga: “Other carmakers have improved their quality greatly due to modern manufacturing techniques, so in some ways we have lost our greatest advantage.”