Lexus Name Origins

[AussiLS400]

Read the other day that the LEXUS name was made up from Luxury EXport to the United States....OK so i'm in Australia so i should be driving a LEXAU. The people of Canada should all have a LEXCA & the people of England should all have a LEXUK..........Would be confusing.

[SKperformance]

I is not based in any fact.

It is a variation of the original name which was Alexis but was found to be to close to a Character who was evil on Dallas or one of those late night soap operas. Which is where the variation came from. Then they where sued by a computer company called Lexis for brand confusion. Yeah like that ever happened.

[dfkd]

This is from Wikipedia...

"An image consulting firm presented a list of 219 names, from which Vectre, Verone, Chaparel, Calibre and Alexis were top candidates. While Alexis quickly became the front runner (possibly due to the association with the Alexis Carrington character on the popular 1980s primetime drama Dynasty) and later morphed to Lexus, the name has been attributed to the combination of the words "luxury" and "elegance." According to Toyota, however, the name had no meaning and was just meant to be pleasing and easy to remember. Just prior to the release of the first vehicles, the database service LexisNexis obtained a temporary injunction forbidding the name Lexus from being used as they stated it might cause confusion. Upon reflection, the court lifted the injunction, deciding that there was a low likelihood of confusion between the two products."

[blake918]

Straight from the horse's mouth:

Toyota Motor Sales contracted a vendor in Northern California to create a name for the new luxury vehicle and division. The name "Lexus" was created by combining two words that depict the vehicle, "luxury" and "elegance."

http://lexus.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/lexus.cf...jJFM1MwMDIwNTQx

[AussiLS400]

Thanks Blake although i think there were other factors involved infact in Australia in 1989 Toyota named a hibred car (actually a GM large car) the LEXCEN named after the designer of the Australia Cup winning yacht Ben Lexcen. The car ran with this name for 10 or so year only in Australia. Coincidence??? And this was named before Lexus had made a debut around the world.

[dfkd]

Thanks Blake although i think there were other factors involved infact in Australia in 1989 Toyota named a hibred car (actually a GM large car) the LEXCEN named after the designer of the Australia Cup winning yacht Ben Lexcen. The car ran with this name for 10 or so year only in Australia. Coincidence??? And this was named before Lexus had made a debut around the world.

I'm pretty sure they would have settled on the Lexus name a few years in advance.

The LS was already complete and named in 1989.