Yeah Lexus, I remember it well, hearing about it from my brother constantly, ... what a huge success it was to bring a Toyota Senator over from Japan, put an L on the hood, and sell it to all of the quick-fix generation that didn't want to research past the commercials and brochure.

Yes it had better fit and finish, quieter? Probably, I wasn't too impressed with my Father's SC400 though, felt like a gold-encrusted Supra and was a crappy drive at speed (although great around town and in mall parking lots).

What Lexus did was marketing, started with a market (target buyer will make $xx/year, will pay $yy, expects zz from 0-60, expects these features, has this many children, is married or ??, etc., etc.) and built a car around that market / target buyer. Did it well, I know the guys who did all of that work, and didn't spend an extra nickle on anything that wouldn't show and improve its perceived value.

A good car for sure, hit right in the Audi market and well below Mercedes prices which was part of Mercedes' change from the only major automaker to price their cars using a cost-plus-margin formula to a market-driven pricing formula, and drove Mercedes pricing down. This forced Mercedes to do the same thing: eliminate the things that made a Mercedes a Mercedes, unless the buyer would see it and perceive it as an added value. Things like forged control arms? Not seen, stamped steel are cheaper, ... etc.

So did the Lexus cars change the automotive landscape and Mercedes-Benz's direction? No, the generation of buyers, who want to sign and drive, trade frequently, and rely on J.D. Powers' "initial quality survey" results to tell them if a car is quality or not (a survey sent to new-car buyers within their first 90-days' ownership to gauge quality) which indicated only whether the customer was exited about their car new, not whether it actually lasted past 90 days and went the distance without serious problems.

Mercedes didn't really let us down on the wiring issues, MBUSA did. They made the decisions whether to cover with a warranty or good-will campaign, not Mercedes-Benz in Germany. I had similar issues with VWUS and Audi in the early-mid '80s, customer service basically sucked, ... until the Japanese companies decided to kill them with kindness (to their customers) and put service first. That also changed the way that Detroit did business, ... a little.

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff