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Toyota launches luxurious Lexus in Japan

Bow-tied waiters held trays of mineral water and chic ambient music filled the air as Toyota unveiled the three models yesterday that will mark the introduction of the Lexus luxury brand in Japan, 16 years after it rolled out in the US.

Japan's No. 1 automaker already sells many of the same models in Japan under the Toyota brand although the cars are slightly different from -- and cheaper than -- the sedan models shown yesterday, the GS430/GS350, SC430 and IS350/250, priced as expensive as ¥6.8 million (US$61,000).

Toyota Motor Corp says it's trying to sell "an experience" and set up luxurious-looking dealerships, complete with leather furniture and hotel-quality service, especially for the Lexus. The showrooms open Aug. 30.

"This is the realization of our dream to create a global luxury brand," Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe said at a giant tent pitched in a Tokyo park, similar to tents for fashion shows and other gala events.

"This is something we have wanted for many years," he said.

Watanabe said Toyota is targeting 3,000 vehicles a month sales for the three models combined and other Lexus models will start selling in coming years, including a hybrid GS next year. Toyota sold 7,900 of the planned Lexus models combined last year in Japan as Toyotas.

This year, Toyota expects to sell 84,000 Lexus vehicles around the world, 20,000 of them in Japan, Watanabe said. Next year, that will climb to 500,000 worldwide -- 50,000 to 60,000 in Japan, he said.

Toyota, based in Toyota city, central Japan, is counting on the success Lexus scored since its debut in 1989 in the US, including excellent J.D. Power and Associates rankings, to woo rich Japanese, who now buy imports such as BMW and Mercedes Benz.

Japanese aren't that familiar with the Lexus brand name and its prospects in this notoriously finicky consumer market are uncertain.

Over decades of modernization, conformist Japan has lived under the ideal that everyone is middle class. As a result, most Japanese tend to favor cars that don't stand out. Import buyers are viewed as a flashy crowd, the antithesis of Toyota's everyman image prevalent in Japan.

But Toyota officials say Japan is changing and a growing upper class is willing to spend.

Toyota has set up a special training center to groom classy, courteous dealers to sell the Lexus brand in Japan. That's proved a challenge because Japanese dealers are already superior to what people are used to in the US and other nations.

Toyota has sold more than 358,000 Lexus vehicles around the world, about 80 percent of them in North America.
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