It was a beautiful car, probably one of the best sounding v10s of all time with the tuning they did.
Q70 ended after MY19, and RLX dies after MY20 like the GS.
Though Q80 will essentially resurrect the Q70 as an EV. These days, that’s far from a sure thing the way things are going.
The problem is, cars just don’t have the profit to justify the development of a vehicle like that, especially as a low volume vehicle. Lexus would much rather spend the R&D on a new niche SUV. Even the MY21 IS is a heavy refresh rather than a full redesign. Heck even the current GS is on the same platform that debuted for 2006.
The way Lexus sees it, there aren’t that many GS customers/intenders around anymore, and among those, maybe they can pickup a few that will go to the IS, a few that will go to the ES, maybe a handful will upgrade to an LS, others that would switch to an SUV. Whatever is left is the pool they’re willing to walk away rather than devote the engineering/marketing/sales resources.
The A7 surely isn’t a volume car for Audi…but it’s a head turner…and has to bring some bodies into the showroom simply because they like the style. Even though they have no intention of buying an A7… it’s good advertising for the brand. I just think the GS could have become some kind of niche product for Lexus that really stirred people up about the brand. I used to be a big Lexus fan, but I feel like they’ve just been falling flat lately. Even the materials quality in the interiors isn’t what it used to be. They are looking kind of cheap unless you get into one of the high end vehicles.
But it doesn’t need to be b/c it shares a platform w/ the A6, which IS a volume model. Not sure if the TNGA-L can support a $50-60K car.
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A shame indeed… Still have my 2014 GS350 AWD. Wish the car was a bit more powerful and had some key features. Definitely wish I had a 5 series, but when I bought the car, I was driving 35k-40k miles per year. Ended up with a XC60 T6 lease instead of a another Lexus.
For some reason, I just really hate the NX. 2020 RX was just hitting the lots and they had a ton of 2019s on the lots still, so all the deals on the 2020s were trash (CarPlay was one of my dealbreaker features, so 2019s weren’t an option for me). Was between an X3 and an XC60. My subdivision and my office parking lot was FULL of X3’s, so ended up with a XC60 to go against the grain a bit. No regrets here
Exactly. Plus you have to consider global volume. As a nameplate, Lexus sold about 765k vehicles globally in 2019. Audi sold nearly as many cars in China alone, and 1.85M globally. And the proportion of Lexus vehicles that are GS are miniscule, whereas A6/A7 actual are a sizable chunk of Audi’s.