Lexus used to be a bit boring, now it's vehicles are homely without justification. The Pontiac Aztec - seemingly the inspiration for the current generation RX - was at least in part "functionally ugly"... the other kind of fugly. We may then infer some level of awareness on the part of the Aztec 'design' team. Not so for Lexus.
In an effort to be less boring, Lexus has turned to sharp inverted lines often at war with it's neighbor in search of excitement and finesse - make that 'L-finesse' to be exact. Simply, Lexus has allowed the L-finesse team to 'Emperor's-New-Clothes' the dickens out of its vehicles. In pursuit of style, luxury and of course "perfection", the high priced Toyota looks ludicrous. It is the person wearing too much make-up who has transformed him or her self into a clown. And like most clowns, its grille is scary. Also, the stance of many Lexus sport vehicles is baffling.
Why do some new Lexus RC Coupe's sit like an old-90s-STS after the struts had given out - with the front end appearing hoisted in the air?
It would be remiss of me not to say that my view may be colored by the fact that I have seen how Lexus operates at close range and how they treat contract workers and support staff. Maybe I've experienced one too many Lexus events where the red carpet and Kobe beef has been rolled out for potential customers, while gray over-milked eggs in a mud tent greet the help; of course there could have been no eggs at all. I'm not a perfect person, and perhaps that's why unlike the child in the famous parable, it is with less innocence and more schadenfreude that I say, "you're naked Lexus".
"There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection." — H.G. Wells.
To be fair (I can hear the eye-rolls), Lexus never claimed to be perfect, but only to be in "The Passionate Pursuit of Perfection". Keep searching my friends. You still have a ways to go in both vehicle styling and your treatment of 'the help'.
