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Carsales Staff10 Nov 2014
NEWS

Tofu on face

Lexus pulls the pin on an introductory drive programme in Japan for its new RC sports coupe – because no-one was interested
When you are living in an automotive world populated by an almost overwhelming desirable range of cars, a lack of interest from the motoring press in anything as basic as a family sedan is understandable, even excusable.
But when you plan to wheel out your latest sports coupe for the delectation of a savvy press corps, you expect to spark more than a glimmer of interest.
Not so for Lexus, when it planned a press day to introduce its handsome new halo model, the RC sports coupe. The company invited a group of journalists from Japan and elsewhere to sample its delights in Yokohama, Japan's second-largest city located just south of Tokyo on Tokyo Bay.
The lack of interest, even with the models in the drive programme including the 351kW/550Nm RC F hi-po V8 version, was overwhelming.
So much so, that the company chose to pull the pin on the whole thing. According to a report in Automotive News, Lexus notified the invitees with the explanation that the event headlining its new coupe had been "cancelled due to insufficient attendance."
Automotive News – which had received and accepted an invitation – quoted a Lexus spokesman as saying it was "just one more sickening example of the auto-alienation syndrome gripping this country and its young." The report went on to suggest that the Japanese are becoming indifferent to cars these days, even those as "sexy" as the RC.
There is, of course, another side to the story.
The choice of the people at Lexus to include essentially traffic-bound roads in the programme was not one that appealed to journalists, who felt there would be little opportunity to experience the RC at its best.
The Automotive News report said one German business reporter railed at the prospect of sitting in traffic on the one-hour trip out of town, questioning what he perceived as a "deeper disconnect in Japan," where car-makers were failing to create an image comparable to luxury German car-makers when running similar events. "If it's a luxury brand, they need to radiate a certain image," he said.
The new Lexus RC follows the LF-Lc Concept Coupe first seen at the 2012 Detroit motor show and is directed at the likes of BMW 4 Series, C-Class Mercedes-Benz and Audi A5.
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