Repair-It

The look back at the BMW2002tii was not great, the 1983 Mustang GT was perfect, an actual drive of an actual car by an original reviewer with the experience to compare to current cars.

This piece slips back to the pointless 2002tii piece. It's a missed opportunity. If you have a pristine LS400 in your hands, tell us how it holds up as a luxury car and as a driver.

My sister and her husband have an SC400 (a 1992 I think). It is high mileage (170k I believe) but starts and runs great and the body is rock solid. It's an interesting car to drive. The engine sounds great, but it lacks low end grunt and the 4-speed auto is slow to kick down. Overall the car is bank vault solid, but it also feels as heavy as a bank vault. My 2009 Cadillac SRX V6 has more get up and go.

Not quite the whole story guys....working for BMW at the time, I was on the front line. Unlike the Big 3, Japanese companies shared technology and manufactured parts for each other. There was definitely some coordination of this assault on the American luxury market because ALL of these instant luxury brands were badged just for the USA and launched within 6 months of each other.

The japanese take a longer-term view when attacking any market. The car makers followed the successful lead of Japan's electronics behemoths. Create a quality product and undercut the competition so severely that they eventually withdraw or go bankrupt. Enter Sony Hitachi Sansui Pioneer - Exit RCA, Zenith Motorola Westinghouse. Japan would sell their products at zero margin or a loss until the competition was gone. Once in control of the market, prices would be raised.

That is exactly what Toyota, Nissan and Honda did - but not all executed it well. Acura product that was visually unique from its Honda lineup, topping the line with the Legend. Unfortunately their advertising hype of being the "equal of the 7 Series and S-Class" was seen for what it was. The interiors were cheap and unimpressive. Except for the excitement of the NSX, Acura posed no threat to the Germans.

(Nissan's Infiniti introduction was just bizarre. The initial ads never showed the cars - just rocks, flowing water, clouds. The Q line - its luxury entry - also had no grille and therefore no identity. The rest of the line was just obvious badged engineered Nissans. Infiniti flopped right on its face.

Toyota was the success story and C/D is correct. The LS400 debuted against the outgoing W126 - the best-selling ever iconic S-Class 300/420/560 Series which ranged from $65-$80k. Lexus priced their entry at $40k. They purposely designed the car to mimic the Mercedes grille, headlights and tail lights and inserted a less- germanic plusher interior.

The wind at their back was the inflation that occurred in the previous 10 years and the way Mercedes buyers behaved. In California at least, owners kept their MBZ until the next generation was released - 7 to 12 years on average. Going from a late 1970's 450SEL/early 80's 500SEL into a 1990 560SEL was painful because the price literally tripled. And Lexus was there to scoop those reluctant Mercedes buyers up, along with the easy pickings from Cadillac and Lincoln.

While the price difference assault against Mercedes was successful, Lexus took a different strategy against BMW which was not that much more expensive. BMW had no V8, and the new 7 Series at the time was plagued with electronic gremlins. BMW basically surrendered some of their turf to the Toyota start-up.

Fast forward twenty years. Lexus - now well established - prices their cars right in line with Germans, deserving or not. The strategy did not go unnoticed by the Koreans, who have now turned it against the Japanese with the Genesis line.