RELENTLESS PERFECTION

The 1990 LS 400 Was a Swift Kick to Mercedes' Solid Gold Reputation

- ALEXANDER STOKLOSA

A large swath of American drivers today have always known Lexus as an established power player. But when Lexus unveiled its first car, the LS, at the Detroit auto show in January 1989, America had a lot to learn about Toyota’s upstart luxury brand.

Toyota’s idea? To build cars as luxurious and gratifying as the Germans while delivering what those cars didn’t: commuter-car reliability. That brief generated the 1990 LS 400 sedan, which was launched alongside a business plan to undercut the traditional brands’ prices while giving customers a highly attentive dealership experience. It worked. The cars and eventual SUVs lived up to the hype, and the dealers’ free breakfasts and loungelike waiting rooms became benchmarks. By the dawn of the millennium, Lexus managed to build itself a chair and pull it up to the big boys’ table.

We can’t go back in time and scarf down the free croissants, but we can explore the significance of Lexus’ launch by driving an original LS at Toyota’s U.S. headquarters in Plano, Texas. Toyota acquired this sedan via donation in 2006 with a mere 16,766 miles on its odometer, and fewer than 1,000 more have clicked off since. Short of finding one with the plastic wrap still on the seats, this is the closest thing to driving a brand-new first-year LS 400.

For how much of a splash it made, little about the LS 400 is particularly groundbreaking, even for the time. Its styling is clean, albeit unrecognizable as a Lexus amid the yowling grilles of the brand’s current vehicles.