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Comments
People are going crazy over adding a $3,000 supercharger to the tC when it weighs over 2900 pounds and adds fancy sunroofs that add weight. People in here want the weight in check yet want a heavier 8-cyl, added weight of sunroof, etc. You need to tell Lexus what you care more about. Added weight on the roof of the car (worst possible place for more weight since you want a low center of gravity) and heavier engines and heavier AWD or do you care more about having a nimble tossable car?
Is also too bad Lexus never offered a low or no optioned IS200. The Toyota Altezza is sold elsewhere in an additional 2 liter engine with manual transmission.
I'd love to see a future IS200 with standard 6-speed manual, LSD, VSC, HID, cloth seats and no sunroof. No options. Would keep price and weight down and appeal to an interesting target demographic.
Part of the gig has always been to draw as clear a line as possible (in this country) between Toyota and Lexus, or rather to maintain the Lexus image. Unfortunately, we Americans have a nasty trend toward brand-conciousness!
I think in the UK and other markets where 2.0L plants are much more to trend in more upscale offerings, the IS200 is a no-brainer (you'd have to offer it for economic purposes in an entry lux), but here anything that isn't directly comparable to the benchmark 325, or better, in displacement and performance would be considered just another economy car.
It always amazed me that so many people insist on the distinction between Lexus and Toyota. Then, after buying one and explaining to people what it is (SportCross is still a relative unknown out there), I find more often than not that John Q. doesn't really get that Lexus is Toyota!
Oy!
If they'd brought it as an Altezza, I'da sure bought it as an Altezza!
Too bad Lexus has focused so much on SUVs. Lexus' primary focus the past 3 years has been on the RX330, GX470, and LX470. That is where the sales and profits have been.
If gasoline stays at or near $2.00 a gallon, a car like the IS200 might also be useful to appeal to environmentalists and to protect the marque from being viewed as loaded with big gas guzzlers.
Lexus needs to be a bit more like Audi, MB, and BMW. You can appeal to buyers who like luxury and those who like performance. Is easier to do the former than the latter, but doing the latter well is a true sign of design, marketing, and sales success. Just think of Cadillac and Lincoln. They focused entirely on luxury. Can only take you so far for so long.
I don't have great hopes for the new platform personally, but if the performance is upped, the amenities slightly refined and the press receptive, $2K won't amount to squat!
I don't disagree that the option of the 200 would be a nice to have, I just don't see it making enough impact in this country to warrant the expense of offering it.
All the dealer cars are here seem to have LSD, VSC, heated seats, misc pkg (floor mats, trunk net, etc.), and one of the leather or escaine value packages. That adds about $2-3,000 in options on top of the base price and destination. The invoices on these cars are pushing $30,000.
My local Lexus dealer is now advertising a CPO '02 IS300 automatic (optioned as above) with 29,500 miles for about $29,500. Will be interesting to see how they price my wife's '03 IS300 sedan with 12,000 miles.
Doesn't really matter dollars to donuts, nobody's interested much in the outgoing model now anyway. I have very significant doubts that a 2.0L option would have brought them into the showrooms in any significant numbers. At 9.5 seconds to 60 for the manual, and 11.2 for the auto (still the overwhelming choice here), even with a price difference of 7-8 grand, a Corolla S could 'bout kick its butt and that won't bring 'em running!
BMW, MB, and Audi are set up in Europe for majority factory ordering. BMW also does a lot of ordering for USA. Only way to get some special options (e.g., cloth seats or Sport seats without the Sport Pkg). Lexus should do this. I'd love to have cloth seats!
Some marques (like BMW, MB, and Saab) encourage Euro-delivery. Not aware of any Japanese marques that do this. Too bad.
Never heard Lexus dealers in USA do much ordering. Can't say I've read anyone on a Lexus board here who ordered. No dealer discussed that with me, though I didn't ask.
So Japanese delivery works for you? Cool. I think a trip to Japan to pick up an IS at the factory would be terrific. I don't see it happening, unfortunately. Or were you thinking European delivery for Lexus (doesn't make sense to me, but hey!)?
Bottom line is you can order your IS with cloth, if that's your priority, or base, or loaded if you like. All of which is beside the point of Lexus not having or wanting to compete in the market below $30K. It just doesn't jibe with their now very public business plan.
Which leaves us with the 2.0L I6. I'm still not certain how to build a business case in this country for an entry-lux "sport" sedan that runs its best 0-60 in 9.5 seconds or in most common trim at 11.2.
I'll be interested to see what performance can be had from the 3.0L V6, as well as what the larger plant size ends up being. I doubt they'll bring the V8 for the tuned model (whenever that appears) but I could be very much mistaken. Since they're going to bump up the size of the car five inches by five inches, adding a V8 option would pretty much all but take the wind out of the GS's sails.
Bet Lexus will be watching closely at BMW's 1 and 2 Series. Without something like an IS200, Lexus won't have anything to compete other than used cars. Lexus' business plan has been SUV-heavy for years now. Not sure there is end in sight, though that depends heavily on what Lexus does with the next IS. Will they offer all the variants like sedan, coupe, and convertible, AWD, and different engine choices?
Does ordering from Lexus allow you to customize your car like you can with other marques? Some other marques allow you to order options or combinations of options that aren't otherwise available. For example, could you get cloth seats with LSD, VSC, sunroof, and heated seats? Not sure their factory is set up to allow customization like BMW or MB do in Europe and are starting to do more in USA.
Of course, it looks like Lexus needs that 3.5L here in the US market very badly....
I'm skeptical though because Infiniti made the $27,000 cloth G35 just to simply match the base price of the BMW 3-series. In fact I think they had duplicate prices so had the BMW had a higher price I would guess Nissan wouldn't have even bothered with the cloth model.
The 2.5L engine should make 215hp or so.
I'd like to think the IS will be around in 2020.
Just look at the BMW 5 & 7 Series fiascos and the new Audi front end is horrible.
I'm assuming Japan will have both the Lexus IS300 and the next Altezza since Lexus is now being offered in Japan. If they want a car like the current IS300 to stick around simply bring over the next Altezza and badge it as a Toyota. But with the launch of Scion and Toyota USA striving to be the next Buick this wouldn't fall into their current plans.
and btw, I thought the new BMW design worked great on the 5 series wagon, and terrific on the 7 series
Id like to see the next IS with the next gen stability control and a Scion tC-like sunroof standard. Dont care too much about leather, but Im sure most will have it anyway.
~alpha
I can honestly say I do NOT like where BMW and Audi are going. Praying Lexus doesn't follow just to be trendy or avant garde.
I'll take "boring" over garish any day.
I think the '01-'05 IS300 will still look tasteful in 10 years. Never broke any new ground, but then it never offended anyone, either.
A big reason the IS300 is forgotten is due to dealer and manufacturer neglect. Both make a ton more money per unit selling SUVs (which account for half of all Lexus sales). Local Lexus dealers content to push only LS and ES. Both are staid and profitable. The GS and IS are the odd siblings who just don't fit in with where the dealers and manufacturer want to push. Just compare advertising efforts.
Too bad Lexus has become so enamored with SUVs. Big, ugly, wasteful things. Yuck!
In the last 5 days 3 different people have come up and ask what kind of car my SportCross was. They all said they like the way the car looked and had to find out what kind of car it was.
As has been pointed out before the 1997 Altezza had a major influence on taillight design. It is really more of a compliment to the Altezza/IS300 that Mitsu, like many others, decided to copy. When I see a new car with similar taillights I always wonder why the designers couldn't come with something original. I would bet that some of the Mitsu designers were still in school when the Toyota released the Altezza in 1997?
And yes everyone wants a sunroof, I don't deny that. Virtually every Accord I see is the EX trim with the standard sunroof. But this car is suppose to be one of Lexus's sportiest cars. Since the majority of people want a sunroof let's take it another step and make people take an automatic while we're at it. Let's add on as much weight as we can on this car, that'll really make it "sporty". And since the car is suppose to be the volume leader of Lexus stripping it down with no sunroof and cloth will give it an attractive base price. Putting a sunroof on it destroys the point of even trying to keep the base price attractive. A lot of people bought a 350Z with no sunroof available, it's not a requirement to some people.
I am in full agreement with your following statement:
"Lexus stripping it down with no sunroof and cloth will give it an attractive base price."
This is exactly why I love the pricing of BMW. When I bought the 99 323BMW in 1998 I got a base model with cloth seats/no sun roof for Cdn$ 34.9K (1998 US exchnage rate was about .65) meaning I spent the equivalent of only US$22,700 for my Bimmer.
This was a great deal compared to most other sport sedan models that are loaded with standard luxury features like leather. Personally I prefer a sporty car with cloth seats and spartan features---makes it feel more Teutonic.
The Heart and Soul of a sports sedan is what is under the hood. Luxury should definitely be left as an option for the people who want to spend more money.
It also helps to have an LSD so more of the heart and soul of the sports sedan hooks up with the pavement.
it appears you value comfort more than performance. At least you cannot get a ticket for being comfortable.
My understanding is that an IS caters to performance-orientated drivers. And how many IS or BMW drivers drive below or at speed limits??
So if performance is not as important , why even consider an IS when there are ES models. The ES330 is one very comfortable car.
I don't think any of us ISers put a premium on comfort over performance, otherwise there are vast other resources we could have tapped instead of hunting over creation to find our perfect li'l ol' Altezza 300s.
I think we need to separate the oft-stated Lexus business plan from some of our own enthusiast desires. The idea of a potentially more affordable entry IS with perhaps a cloth interior, no sunroof, maybe even a budget sound system, but a high perf engine option is indeed tasty, and very much along the lines of a sport enthusiast's dream. Unfortunately, it runs directly counter to the Lexus strategy for the brand overall (which remains predominantly "luxury first"), and kind of specifically against the stated goals for the platform.
I think (no one out here will know for sure until '05/MY06) that you will be able to special order, as you can now, your IS trimmed out almost any way you want, assuming they offer cloth the next time around (possibly not). You may have to take item "B" in order get item "A" in a couple of situations, but that's the way the automotive world works these days. If, however, you insist on taking delivery from local stock, rest assured you will get whatever the company has determined as saleable to the largest cross-sections possible, never once glimpsing an true entry-sport model, and that's that.
Were I a dealer looking to stock my lot based on prejudging potential customers against my allotment, a new model HP stripper from a lux mfr would be pretty far down on my list of gottahaves; I can make much more money with juicier, more saleable set-ups.
Again, it's not that I'm not sympathetic, and I do see an upside to making such a package "available", I just don't see much of a business case for stocking it unless my inventory is routinely ultra-huge! Also, I see that (strictly from an expressed "brand" perspective) as more of a Toyota offering, regardless of the fact that they don't!
"don't think any of us ISers put a premium on comfort over performance"
That was exactly what I wrote in my last message. IS is for perfomace. ES is for people who favor comfort/luxury over performance.
Matter of fact, he and I probably have even more bent toward handling given that our Gitas have more even weight distribution and better transition characteristics than the sedan...
;-)
To me high performance driving can only really be done on a race track. So I wouldn't be interested in a sport sedan with minimum Lux. I think Wale is right, not enough people would show up at Lexus dealerships looking for a stripper IS300 even if it was .5 sec faster to 60 MPH. For a few bucks more you can get and STI or EVO with lots of sport and very little LUX.
Sort of like A La Carte versus Fixed Menus. Lexus provides cars with many luxury features as standard(fixed menu) while BMW provides cars with minimal luxury features(a la carte).
Once you add luxury options to a BMW, you end up with an over-priced car when compared to an equivalent Lexus model.
In my case I like the BMW approach better because luxury features do not excite me (in fact the cloth seats on my 323 are more comfortable than any leather seat). Based on my preference I get more value out of a base 3 series.
In fact what really excites me most is the STI and EVO . What stops me from seeking these vehicles is the adolescent styling(especially those rear spoilers)---I may seek an STI if I reach a mid-life crisis.
Ofcourse most Lexus drivers would disagree with me. They prefer a good balance between luxury and performance.
I think you're absolutely right, dewey, about the traditional Lex customer being focused more on lux. And the dealerships themselves are still at odds with how best to serve their IS customers, who by and large are focused on driving, and are a severe departure from the typical Lexian.
I'm with jmess, though, I like some comfort with my sport, hence my preference for the feel (and smell) of perfed "sport" leather. The true "Lexus" gathered, buttery stuff, however, doesn't interest me much. If I wanted to drive my den to work, I'd buy a Buick.
My fear is that the next gen will be much more Lexish, and much less Altezza-ish, at which point they lose me.
Hell, without a wagon, they lose me anyway, unless of course the sedan is such a road-grabbing, Bimmer-stomping eye-popper I just can't resist...
;-)
From all the real press I've read (the stuff that actually comes from Lexus or Toyota), the direction for the next gen IS sounds bigger, softer, more plush and more HP oriented. But Lex isn't alone here; sounds much like BMW and Audi are going that way too.
Thankfully Audi will offer an alternative with the A3 Sportback, but a true compact RWD wagon appears to be a non-option for the US after '05. Even Benz is exiting, offering only the 240 wagon here, which is underpowered and hefty for the class.
And, most importantly, the GS comes in two models. Lexus can't have the base (currently the GS300) being too close to the upscale (currently the GS430) in terms of power and capabilities.
You made the cut, riez.
I wish the next IS changement will be as radical as the G35 v.s. the old G20. Better styling, better accelerations, better handling...
Even though the HP between the two may be fairly close it won't matter. The people who want to be more sporty so to speak get the bragging rights with the bigger engine and get the sportier suspension, etc.
It makes sense to an extent to put only the 3.0 on the GS because when they first showed it they claimed the V8 would have an estimated 300hp. If this is true then a 3.5 V6 would be too close in HP to the V8. They have to also leave room for the LS to have more HP than the V8 GS so it's all a numbers game. A lot of people buy on HP and want to have the bragging rights over the cheaper versions. The 300hp V8 doesn't look too superior to the 3.5 V6 if it only has 20-30hp more. Like I said then you have the LS to think about. I think they're also making a car above the LS, which I would guess would use the V8 as well. You can't have massive HP on the GS when there will be more cars above it to think about, thus use the 3.0 to seperate the two out, and keep demand for the V8.
Again this is all pure speculation on my part.
There is very little "wrong" with the current IS300. Sure, it could use some more power. And a 6-speed manual. But it has a tasteful exterior styling. Great reliability. Good practicality. And, most importantly, it, esp. the 5-speed manual with LSD, is VERY fun to drive, and drive hard! God help Lexus if they make the same bold styling mistakes as Audi and BMW are making now.
As someone who owned two (2) 1996 Infiniti G20, including the rare '94-'96 t model (with great Sport seats and LSD), I loved the styling, price, reliability, and practicality of the first generation G20 ('89-'96). The 2nd generation ('99-'02) was a huge disappointment. The 1st generation had IRS but the 2nd used a cheap beam axle!!! But there is NO comparison between the FWD I4 140 HP G20 and the RWD V6 260 HP G35. Two entirely different cars with entirely different missions and competitors. (Just think what competition the original G20 had from '89-'96. Cars like the A4, Acura Integra, ES250, and 318i. The 1st generation G20 was possibly the best handling FWD car ever. Nimble. Just needed a bit more power (say 25 HP).)
Somehow I still think, though, that a year or so after the new platform intros we will see a V8 IS, to promote a new skunkworks at Lex-ota. Too much HQ buzz about playing the AMG/M game for this not to happen, I think.
But you are very much correct that Denny or someone else said point blank that the new IS engine choices would be sixes.
For starters... }-]
There has always been a advantage to the ES over the Avalon or Camry and it will continue to be there.
The ES3XX will continue on in the Lexus line-up. Have you seen the sales numbers it posts? Based on sales alone, it will continue.
Lexus has also stated they have a 2-pronged approach to the entry level. The ES for those seeking full luxury, and the IS for those seeking sport.
I'm sure the next generation ES3XX due in 2 years will get the same engine the Avalon will get.
One can only hope they'll drop the idiotic "Sport Design" package for the ES in future iterations and dedicate the capital instead to a real "sport" pkg for the IS...
;-)
If I were going into the redesign process on the IS, I think I would stick with the plan of widening the platform, but only by maybe two inches or so, rather than the five planned. I think I might give the wheelbase an inch to an inch and a half boost (again, instead of five) for rear-seat leg room, but leave the LOA exactly the same, thus shortenting the rear overhang slightly. It won't beat the competition on interior volume, but then I don't think it really needs to; just needs to compete.
I'd resign myself to the fact that the ignominious HP wars are still in full swing and that my powerplants must either meet exactly or exceed each trim level offered by my competitors. This is not because it's required to make an excellent sporting car, far fom it, but rather because this is the current trench in which sales wars are being waged. I definitely would have a halo version with a big gun, regardless of sales numbers it could generate. Halo models work for car lines with sporting and/or lux intentions; they sell lesser models by association. I believe that with every fiber.
I'd offer three suspension set-ups: touring, sport and track/competition. The first two would be available across the lineup, but the last only on the upper two models.
I'd offer Alcantara, perfed leather or a Recaro combination of the two. While some of us feel that cloth should be an option, I'm convinced there's no real percentage in that business model, and by far the Alcantara outperforms cloth in grip, comfort and long term utility.
Just a few musings here...
I know the current IS is doing well, but not necesserly in sales because it doesn't offer a big choice of body styles or engines. And the 5 speed manual is ok, BUT IT ISN'T OFFERED IN THE SPORTCROSS!! If the next IS gets the 3.5 in option, I can't believe it won't be standard in the GS!! They said the next GS was gonna have a 3 liter engine (245 hp) but we're still one year before its launch so they could change engines easily. And for the V8, they'll build an all new one so that the two engines (V6, V8) won't be too close in hp. I think it's gonna be a retuned version of the next 5.5 they want to put in theur trucks in 2006. Probably a 5 liter but it could also be a 4.6 liter. No horsepower announced.
I would much prefer a new aluminum I-6, all things considered... ;-)