THE BEST CAR

THE LEXUS LS400 WASN'T JUST A FLEETING INDULGENCE.

- MATT FARAH

IN ONE OF THE proudest moments of my career, I acquired a Lexus LS400 with 897,000 miles on the odometer. I spent four years getting it the rest of the way to a seven-digit reading and sent a note to Lexus the day the car passed the million-mile mark. The company's response was, in essence, "Well, yeah, it was built to do that."

The LS400 is the best consumer-grade vehicle ever made. Other vehicles throughout history are more opulent, more beautiful, faster. But few cars changed the game like the LS400 did, leaving competitors scratching their heads for a decade. Toyota created a new luxury-brand flagship in a way that was simple but not easy, with an enthusiastic CEO, an open checkbook, an indefinite timeline, and a strong project leader who set a series of seemingly impossible goals-and then did whatever it took to achieve them.