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Grilled: Lexus seeks design edge over rivals in emerging markets
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Big may be beautiful, but Toyota Motor Corp鈥檚 global design chief is betting that edgy is the way to go for the Japanese automaker鈥檚 premium Lexus brand, specifically its signature 鈥榮pindle grille鈥 design.
Tokuo Fukuichi, who is also Lexus鈥 global chief, says the design shock-therapy gives the brand 鈥 and conservative Toyota more broadly 鈥 the stand-out face it previously lacked.
While some industry rivals and design experts say the jagged-edged, trapezoid grille is downright ugly, 63-year-old Fukuichi stands by the drastic makeover, saying it will give Lexus a 鈥渦nique鈥 edge over German rivals BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz particularly in competitive emerging markets such as China, where buyers will pay more for a car that stands out from the crowd.
Fukuichi, who was brought back to Toyota from a subsidiary in 2011 and as he was recovering from cancer, says Toyota for too long designed cars by committee 鈥 often of several dozen people. 鈥淭he upshot was styling conservatism which everybody tolerated, but nobody was passionately in love with. We tried to please 10 out of 10 people. Now we鈥檙e trying to please one of 10 people out there with Lexus.鈥
鈥淲hen CEO Akio Toyoda asked me to come back, he told me he wanted to make our cars cool. That meant he thought our cars weren鈥檛 sexy,鈥 Fukuichi added, explaining his introduction back then of the head-turning grille.
In an interview ahead of this week鈥檚 Shanghai autoshow, Fukuichi said Lexus was still not at 鈥渁 gold medal winning level on the global stage,鈥 versus leading German brands and the likes of Jaguar, Maserati and Aston Martin.
Fukuichi is no stranger to controversy. In the late-1980s, he caused a storm with Toyota鈥檚 first-generation Previa multi-purpose vehicle, which was dubbed the 鈥榚gg van鈥 because of its quirky rounded styling.
鈥淓ven polarizing designs, you get used to them after a while,鈥 he says.
The designer鈥檚 credo is to take a risk to stand out from the competition 鈥 like a movie star playing on what others consider a flaw in his looks in an industry where the generic drop-dead fashion model doesn鈥檛 linger long in the memory.
For Lexus, that flawed look is the spindle grille, which made its quiet, tentative debut in the Lexus CT in 2010 and was later incorporated into the redesigned Lexus GS.
It upset more than a few. At a mid-2012 shareholders鈥 meeting, one angry Toyota shareholder complained the new Lexus 鈥渇ace鈥 was giving the brand a bad reputation. Even some Lexus insiders likened the new look to an ugly deep-sea creature.
Others outside joined in the criticism. A former Rolls Royce designer said the pinched-in-the-middle spindle grille was a 鈥渄esign no-no鈥 as it created an 鈥渦ncomfortable鈥 tension in the lines and shape. A US design professor said the controversial grille looked like the mouth of the Predator, an alien sci-fi movie character.
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