Lexus continues high-end coupe tease

Rumours abound that Lexus is set to confirm its LF-LC concept will make series production, but the company has yet to make any such announcement.

Media speculation heightened last week with US outlet Wards Auto reporting that the company’s VP of Marketing, Brian Smith, told a correspondent that “overwhelming response” to the big hybrid coupe had provided the fillip the company needed to line it up for production.

“That was [intended as] a concept car, and I think it surprised everybody, including us, when Japan said due to overwhelming response they decided to do it,” Mr Smith reportedly told Wards at a recent media event in Austin, Texas. “It’s a huge win.”

Lexus Australia spokesman Tyson Bowen told motoring.com.au that Mr Smith has since denied saying any such thing.

“The official line remains unchanged: the LF-LC remains under consideration. By Lexus’s standards, that’s a pretty big step, going from concept to ‘under consideration’. But that’s all it is at the moment.”

Hailing from its Californian design studio, the company’s own description of the LF-LC’s place is to “advance the redefinition of Lexus with emotive, avant-garde beauty and advanced technology, yet remain within reach for premium buyers.”

This would make it a serious contender to fill several roles currently vacant in the company’s line-up – upstream of the upcoming IS Coupe, which was previewed by the two-door LF-CC concept and is itself yet to be formally confirmed for production.

There are the dual spaces left by the LFA supercar, which finished its 500-unit production run at the end of 2012, and the discontinued SC 430 drop-top.

The LF-LC coupe would also serve as a showcase for Lexus Hybrid Drive systems, the luxury brand’s upmarket take on the Hybrid Synergy Drive systems used by parent company Toyota in Prius, Camry and US-only Highlander (aka Kluger) lines.

Lexus has always linked the two LF-LC show cars with hybrid power, citing a power output of 372kW from a petrol-electric package. It’s giving away nothing further in the way of engine, electric motor or battery specifications, or even which wheels it would drive.

It is happy, however, to use the concept as a take-it-as-read harbinger to technologies that will turn up in future high-end product, for example TFT touch-screens, used even in window switching in the concept, and carbon-fibre, for which it has patented a unique 3D weaving process.

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