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Lexus Chief Bob Carter



To all the Lexus ES naysayer’s criticizing it because it doesn’t perform as a BMW 550 or Mercedes E500, we say you’ve missed the whole point of this car AND its part in the master strategy of Lexus.

To make it clearer, not being in the same performance class as those cars is just fine for the new ES.

In case you don’t realize it, the ES is purely a luxury focused car aimed at an audience that the rest of the competition is ignoring.

BMW 3-series, 5-series, Mercedes E-Class, Infiniti M/G-class, Acura TL, Audi A4/A6-class, Lexus IS/GS-series.

All aimed at the demographic looking for extra ‘SPORT’ in their purchase…BMW being the MOST skewed toward the ‘Sport’ end of the spectrum.

Now let us pose the question to you.

Who in this competitive landscape is focusing on the customer who prefers more ‘LUXURY’ than sport?

And do you know how many customers there are in that segment who could care less how sporty the car is?



Let’s just say, there are A LOT of people who just want a reliable car that they don’t have to think about, dripping in luxury and comfort.

THAT, is the customer that Lexus built the ES for.

The customer that thinks the original Lexus LS is just fine for them, thank you very much, but don’t want to spend over 40k to get it.

Just look at the the specs on the new ES.

It’s basically a prettier, modernized LS400, with way more luxury features.



For those who say it’s not sporty enough for them, Lexus says that’s fine.

We have the IS and the GS for those customers.

Lexus has identified an opening that should end up being very lucrative for them because there is virtually no one left in this space.

Just like their strategy of three SUV’s that perform three different roles, the ES is part of a strategy of two offerings (Entry-Luxury) starting in the $30k price bracket.

One for the performance/sport crowd (IS/GS) and one for the luxury based clique (ES).

We think it’s a brilliant strategy that will end up confounding the competitors again.

And even though we’re not in the customer demographic for the ES, it’s a mighty fine car and it is MUCH better looking in real life than in the pics.

Year after year, Lexus keeps showing us they know the market better than anyone else.

More photos of this car are in our Chicago auto show gallery.

Click here to view the 2006 Chicago auto show gallery

Special thanks to Lexus for sponsoring the 2006 chicago auto show photo gallery!






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