Lexus LF-LC at least five years away

The Lexus LF-LC, one of the most talked about concept cars in 2012, continues to tour the global motor show circuit after its Detroit debut in January 2012, to gauge public and corporate response to the design. Lexus' top brass reckon the vehicle is a 50-50 chance of becoming a production reality, but in conversation with the LF-LC concept car's lead designer, the car is at best five years away from hitting showrooms.

Ben Chang, Lead Designer at the CALTY Design Research centre in California, who was responsible for the LF-LC design, says that even if the stars aligned and Lexus green-lit the car today, it's unlikely we'd see the coupe until late in the decade.

"If we get a green light ... a typical production manufacturing time line is seven or eight years. If they can hurry up, maybe five years. It all depends on the technology and profit of course. The organisation has to make money.

"I'm hoping it will happen, but we don't know yet. Right now, so far, we've been receiving a lot of positive feedback."

The LF-LC's popularity with the car buying public, but also Lexus distributors and the Lexus Global Executive Council, has seen the vehicle continue its global tour, recently given a blue paint job for its Australian International Motor Show debut. After its Melbourne Cup racing carnival appearance, the in-demand concept car heads to the Los Angeles Auto Show before year's end, the place of its conception and potentially where its future could be cemented.

But even if the sharp-looking concept car does get the green light for production, the production car will be a different looking beast. Asked if the car's looks, inside and out, would change to meet manufacturing imperatives and adhere to safety concerns, Mr Chang responded "Exactly yes".

"If the corporation wants to see this car on the road in the future, then as a responsible designer we need to do a lot of homework to meet the safety requirements and there are other issues," he said. "Safety requirements are getting much tougher each year so what happens is during product development we not only have to support the requirements for safety reasons we also have to be creative about expressing our artistic statements, so by accepting a lot of these requirements, it gets really tough.

"We have to sort out work around those requirements and then as a designer it becomes a big part of your homework."

The CALTY design studio Lead Designer said that the dashboard in the LF-LC, for instance, would be dramatically different for the production version of the car. "The first thing I can tell you is the height of instrument panel changes, it becomes massive, really tall, really heavy, because of the regulation of airbags, because of impact strength."

According to the LF-LC's designer, it is unlikely that the 372kW petrol-electric LF-LC will be precursor to a next-generation SC430.

"Officially I cannot really tell you anything deeper than this is a concept car. If management decided to push it forward [to production] they would come up with some kind of a slot for it to fit in to."

The next cab off the rank for the Lexus will be the all-new third generation 2013 Lexus IS, including the IS250 and IS350, expected to make its debut at the Detroit motor show in January 2013 and Australia bound in the second half of that year.

Lexus' new IS Series has been previewed by the LF-CC concept car, and there will plenty more concept car coming from Lexus in the near future. Ben Chang wouldn't talk about the next concept design to come out of Lexus' Californian design studio, saying "I cannot really disclose this," but hinted that we'll see some new metal emerging soon.

"We are doing a lot of exciting stuff. We've seen a lot of positive feedback on our projects and cars," added Mr Chang, stating that his team is "working on even more exciting projects".

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