Beyond The Road Into The Sea

Meet the Lexus LY 650, the flagship yacht launching Lexus into revolutionary luxury lifestyle

- Raewyn Koh

For so long, Lexus has been struggling to prove its worth as a luxury brand to many who still see the marque as makers of practical and reliable cars — not that there’s anything wrong with that. But when even Mr. Akio Toyoda himself, CEO and president of Toyota, felt embarrassed when someone commented to him that “Lexus [made] boring cars,” it was all the push he needed for him to rethink what else Lexus could do to elevate its presence in the luxury lifestyle market.

This was how the Lexus LY 650 came to be. Making its debut in Boca Raton, Florida, in September this year, the Lexus LY 650 comes after two and a half years of development. Sharing his thoughts at the yacht’s debut press conference, Mr. Toyoda mentioned that to transform the brand positioning of Lexus, the team had to think of Lexus beyond the road, thus leading to the concept of building a yacht to fit in with the revolutionary lifestyle space he desired Lexus to occupy.

For him, it was a decision that would transform Lexus, and Toyota as a whole, from an automaker into a mobility company. “Once we said that we would like to give all the people on Earth access to the freedom of mobility, cars alone would not be able to fulfill that objective,” he says. “That’s why we have decided to transition into a mobility company and not just remain as a car manufacturer.”