a secret meeting at the Toyota
headquarters disco the entire leadership
roster is present and waiting with bated
breath in a few sentences Toyota's
company Chairman lays out a plan that
will change Toyota and the entire luxury
market forever forever this is
everything you need to know to get up to
speed on the Lexus LS for those people
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I'm gonna give you 200 gold coins and a
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I'm smashing on you with my hammer atop
the buffest horse you've ever seen
hashtag buff horses it was 1983 17 years
before post Malone was even born the oil
crisis had come and gone and as a result
Japan's manufacturers and they're funny
little fuel-efficient cars made a nice
little foothold in the US Japan's US
market share had jumped from 11% in 1969
to 28% in 1980 that's like almost as big
a jump as I can
target but Toyota's jump terrified the
American automakers I mean they believed
now that American consumers were used to
Japanese brands they wouldn't see any
reason for going back to the big three
so they lobbied the Reagan
administration to remedy this situation
you wanted a law an order in this town
you've got it in 1981 the US government
mandated a restricted import of Japanese
vehicles Japan reluctantly agreed to a
voluntary restraint agreement and as a
result they were allowed to import only
one point six eight million cars a year
to the US now this kind of sucked for
Japanese brands especially Toyota
Japan's currency was getting weaker
every year too and that certainly was
not gonna help Ichiro Suzuki not the
baseball player was Toyota's lead
project engineer and he had an idea he
thought would be a real home run he
believed that German luxury makers BMW
and Mercedes had it too easy over the
past few years and they had gotten a
little comfy a little complacent Ichiro
figured they would never suspect Toyota
could design a luxury car so that's what
they do
a real curveball now some of you might
be thinking wait a minute James didn't
you just say that Japan's money was weak
here's why I was wondering that yeah it
was gonna be really expensive for Toyota
to design a whole new car but it was
actually the weak yen that could make
this plan work Germany's money was
pretty strong so for them to build a car
then sell it in the US it would cost
them a lot and then they had to sell it
for a lot but for Toyota it would be
relatively expensive for them to build
but when they sold it in a country with
a stronger currency like America they
would make a lot of profit even if they
sold the car at a much lower price than
their German competition this is how
Toyota would make a ton of money
in spite of the roadblocks ahead of them
so they got to work Toyota named the
project f1 not for Formula One but for
flagship one they enlisted the talents
of 3700 technicians and engineers split
into 24 distinct teams the new car would
not share any components from any
previous Toyota models they had to start
from scratch but how would they know
what to build how could they understand
what Americans want in a luxury car
while living all the way over burn burn
burn burn burn well they'd have to camp
out overseas and immerse themselves
inside one of America's largest luxury
strongholds a place where everyone only
accepts the best of land of no
compromise Orange County California
California California here they come the
Toyota team spent a month in a rented
house in Laguna Beach to observe the
people they were aiming to win over the
elusive Lagoon Ian Joe Mercedes or a BMW
and enjoyed an elegant lifestyle Toyota
also took into consideration how their
cars would look on American roads and
had to fit in and complement the scenery
around it like me at a wedding I get
along with the moms I get along with the
dads smoke a cigar over here okay
grandma Ruth yeah you got next dance so
with the research done they went back to
Japan to put the new luxury car together
Toyota had their first running prototype
in 1985 it was powered not by a little
four-cylinder or v6 like people had come
to expect from Toyota but something
wahlburger Toyota knew that their car
needed a lot of power it was gonna be a
big boy and potential luxury buyers
weren't gonna be stoked with the slow
ride so engineers spent years
designing the new engine it had an
aluminum block aluminum heads dual
overhead cams a sophisticated fuel
injection system and most importantly
eight cylinders all-in-all Toyota spent
four hundred million dollars developing
the new 1uz EFI engine and it's an
awesome engine
[Music]
[Applause]
toyota bill 450 prototype cars and
tested them extensively in the US and
over in Germany they spent literally
days driving up and down the Autobahn at
full throttle making sure the new engine
could handle it when they drove the
prototypes around they were either
unmarked or wearing Cressida badges so
nobody would suspect but apparently that
didn't stop curious drivers from
following the f1 for miles when they
were testing it out they just had to
know what it was they shipped some cars
to Canada and Sweden to test the
traction control and anti-lock brake
systems in extreme cold weather for two
winters the cars lived in some of the
coldest places in the world to make sure
the systems held up in those conditions
but a flagship luxury car also needs
performance handling so Toyota brought
IndyCar and NASCAR legend Roger
out to their proving grounds Roger and
the Toyota team put the car through its
paces and worked out the final
suspension tweaks by the late 80s the
car was pretty much done and ready to go
on sale huh speaking of on sale
I want to brag about the fact that you
don't like bowels we got a hearse per
shirt boom fighting lightning lightning
lightning eat hot dogs with confidence
you can spill mustard on this one and no
one will even notice go to donut
Mediacom or click the link below or go
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please enjoy the rest of the ls400
episode it's late eighties the car is
ready to sell but there was a problem
the name those highfalutin luxury buyers
back in Laguna Beach probably didn't
want to be seen driving around in a -
Liotta toyota their new car needed a new
brand name to be sold under the Toyota
braintrust came up with a list of like
200 potential plates for a new brand
until they whittled it down to five four
of them I can't remember
they chose Lexus that sounds nice the
model the f1 also needed a new name so
they just did what every other luxury
brand does ls400
what's the LS mean probably luxury sedan
I don't know what's rx mean or a mean or
GS mean or the mean or R mean what is
life mean so now it was time to hit the
showroom upon its debut in 1989 shout
out Taylor Swift
the LS 400 really freaked up the whole
darn ball game the 250 Hurst / LS 400
was faster from zero to 60 than the BMW
740i
arguably looked better than the Mercedes
300 se
not the AMG obviously and had way more
tech than whatever Cadillac had to offer
drivers loved the quiet cabin and
exceptionally smooth performance of the
new v8 it was so smooth in fact that you
could balance a glass of wine on the
engine while it ran how many times have
you wanted to hang out and sit whine
when your engines running and you're
next to it it's fancy it's a luxury car
that's what you do so in the LSS first
year lexus sold over 42,000 of them and
by the very next year had passed both
BMW and Mercedes in sales in the u.s.
critics found it hard to believe and I
did too but Toyota a Japanese company
produced a luxury car that was as good
as its German competitors for just under
$40,000 gentlemen
mission accomplished Lexus rivals were
dumbfounded Cadillac bought an LS 400
for research purposes after taking the
whole thing apart they figured that they
themselves wouldn't be able to build a
car like it with GM's current
manufacturing process the Germans were
panicking too mercedes dropped their US
pricing 10% as a response and rushed to
add features to the brand new 1991
s-class they went way over budget and
their chief engineer actually lost his
job as a result compared to other luxury
car brands the LS 400 was so affordable
that BMW accused them of selling it at
lower than cost because they didn't
believe that Toyota was making any
profit the second gen LS 400 debuted in
1995 it looked pretty similar to the
first one but underneath Lexus had
tweaked or redesigned about 90% of the
car
it was quieter stronger and the engine
was a little bit more powerful the new
ls400 was over 200 pounds lighter or as
we say a donut one Nolan lighter than
the first Jeff and faster from 0 to 60
by a full second Lexus had done it again
making another great car the LS 400 was
still cheaper than the competition but
the base price was increased by about
17% to make matters a little worse
the US was also threatening Japan with
tariffs which would skyrocket the price
to over $100,000 that's in 1995 money
the year that post Malone was born it
doesn't that would obviously absolutely
tank the Lexus brand lucky for them an
agreement was reached between the two
governments and the company dodged that
bullet the year 2000 y2k had come and
gone the Backstreet Boys black and blue
record was on repeat in my stereo and
Lexus revealed the third gen LS model
now called the LS 430 it was the first
lexus to employ active cruise control so
you didn't have to constantly adjust
your speed in traffic leaving your right
ankle free to do whatever else you need
it to do some of us like to so while we
drive or take it weld look Lexus drivers
don't have time to only drive we like to
sit in obscene comfort and reflect on
life's great mysteries
hashtag comfy game the LS 430 had a new
engine to a bigger more powerful 4.3
liter v8 making 290 horses the body was
completely restyled and much more
aerodynamic than previous gens
the Porsche 918 and the
p1 those are pretty cool quarter right
yeah yeah they're pretty cool but why am
i talking about them right now well they
have v8 uh-huh
and they're hybrids yes
but they definitely weren't the first
the Lexus LS 600h was Lexus was ready to
refresh the LS once again and in 2006
dropped the fourth gen model the new LS
460 got an upgraded 4.6 liter v8 and for
the first time the LS also got a bigger
engine option the LS 600h had a 5-liter
v8 mated to an electric motor for a
combined power of 442 Persis as well as
being ultra low emission certified so
you save the world and you can cruise in
the home lane the LS 600h to 0 to 60 in
five and a half seconds successfully
bridging the gap between a gross sedan
performance and the illusion of fuel
sipping economy it did about 25 miles
per gallon combined Lexus continued to
innovate the average price people paid
for the smaller 460 was around 80 grand
and the 600 H started at a hundred and
four thousand bones Lexus was no longer
the little guy the current gen Lexus LS
is offered in three models the LS 350 LS
500 and 500 H the fifth gen is the first
LS to be offered without a v8
the LS 500 has a twin-turbocharged v6
making 415 her Spurs and the hybrid 500
H is naturally aspirated making just a
little less the LS is still going strong
and now it's not just the big boy he's
one of the big dogs I really want an LS
400 really bad they're sick they're the
best they're honestly depending on how
you look at it one of the best cars ever
made and a great story fine we did it we
finally did it
Nathan Whitman from the r / donut
subreddit leave us alone
this guy posted a picture of his car
every day until we did enough to speed
on it that's not gonna work in the
future but if you're creative and you
ask us in creative ways you might just
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