Ed. note: NX built in Japan<\/em>) because that segment is on fire. First time in my career I can remember one segment being in such high demand virtually everywhere in the world. Consumer acceptance is quite high \u2014 and we\u2019ve got more feedback that owners of some of the German competitors would now consider NX because of F-Sport.<\/p>\nQ: My Lexus-owner friends rave about the owner experience. What\u2019s different?<\/p>\n
Bolain: From the beginning our tagline has been \u201cThe Pursuit of Perfection.\u201d And our dealers adopted that as a personal mantra. It\u2019s just going that extra mile. We could talk about . . . stories we hear about a sales person who – when somebody\u2019s car had a flat tire – goes to get them. Or the sales person who shoveled someone\u2019s driveway. Sales people who go far beyond \u201chere\u2019s my check and here\u2019s your keys\u201d to have a personal relationship with their buyers. That\u2019s why we have the loyalty, because you get used to that and hate to give that up.<\/p>\n
Q: Why not a turbo 2.0-liter for the U.S. market RX as in Japan and Europe?<\/p>\n
Bolain: It could. Right now we\u2019re just dipping our toe in the turbo waters. We just introduced it in NX. First turbo in our history. We\u2019re just putting it in IS . . . and RC and we\u2019re also putting it in GS. So we\u2019re learning how acceptance goes. This market still desires to have a V6 engine – our gas prices are certainly lower than Europe and parts of Asia.<\/p>\n
Q: What\u2019s Lexus doing to advance beyond styling?<\/p>\n
Bolain: We\u2019re rounding out our lineup nicely not only in terms of product, but now in terms of engine choices. So that \u201cpersonalizability\u201d \u2013 I\u2019m going to make up a word \u2013 means your Lexus isn\u2019t the same as your neighbor\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Q: The two-row RX\u2019s Toyota platform mate, the Highlander, has three row seating. Mainstream, mid-size ute buyers demand three rows, yet it\u2019s rare in luxury mid-size. Why?<\/p>\n
Bolain: As Baby Boomers became empty nesters, RX became a fantastic alternative for them. We now have a whole new generation of buyers coming into luxury at a fast rate \u2013 but they\u2019re young families. So we\u2019ve moved from Baby Boomer, empty-nesters buying this vehicle to the young family. We know there is a need for third row. Our dealers have made it very clear that if there was one wish they could have it would be a third row in the RX. So we took our truck-based, three-row, midsize, GX SUV (and repriced it) at $49,995 to test the waters. It used to sell 700-800 a month \u2013 we now sell 2,000-2,200 a month. So we\u2019ve proven to ourselves that what we\u2019ve heard is true. So next move for Lexus is to have a car-based SUV with three rows.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I tell Brian Bolain, marketing manager for Toyota\u2019s Lexus luxury brand, that the new, radically-styled Lexus NX and Lexus RX utes are the most polarizing vehicles I have driven, he beams. \u201cLexus is no longer just a rational brand,\u201d he likes to say of its emotional \u201cL-Finesse\u201d styling. Irrational? Emotional? Lexus? Those words once […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17226"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17226"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17228,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17226\/revisions\/17228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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