Take Me Home Country Roads

As Lexus International launches its latest luxury sedan, Bazaar takes it for a spin on the super highways of Nashville, Tennessee, driving to the tunes of traditional country music

- Komal Sharma

On a warm June evening earlier this year, the bars and restaurants of downtown Nashville were brewing with energy as country music lovers from all over the world trickled into the Music City of America. Two days after, the annual CMA Music Festival was to begin. They say what Los Angeles is to movies Nashville is to music, and the tradition of blues and country is alive and resounding in this Southern city.

But what was music to our ears was the sound of the best of Japanese automotive technology being parked outside the Kimpton Aertson hotel, ready for us to test drive. The Lexus ES series is the newest addition to Toyota Motor Corporation’s luxury segment and a f leet of them was lined along the street, their sleek bodies beaming in the bright sunshine with stylised front bumpers sweeping up from the side all the way to the back. This is the seventh-generation Lexus ES300 and its hybrid model was launched in India last month.