Lexus breaks down how its wildest electric concept got where it is today.
Lexus wants you to turn back the clock a little. It already unveiled the Lexus Electrified Sport concept, an almost LC Coupe-like concept with an electric powertrain, which will make its first appearance at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this month. That will also be the car’s first trip outside of Japan to be viewed by the public.
We called this thing an electric LFA successor when it debuted, and now, Lexus wants to tell us all about how it arrived here. As such, Lexus has shown some new sketches of the Sport Concept, showing us just how progress is going on the successor to this once legendary gas-burner brand.
These sketches are the work of the very talented Tom Matsumoto, Senior Lead Designer at Calty Design Research, a design studio in California. Lexus says that the studio “plays a pivotal role in communicating the future for Lexus design via bold and exciting concept vehicles.”
Here’s what Lexus has to say about how its concept looks: “With the essential bold proportions and low ride height of a sports car, the concept symbolizes Lexus’s sharp focus on the future.”
Lexus says the group of sketches below are from a very early design phase of the concept, hence the more organic-looking wheels and lights. These sketches are intended to be more of an image model than a full 3D sketch of a car, which Lexus says helps the designers create an idea of what the car will be without being constrained by size or packaging details.
The last part of that sentence is incredibly important. People always ask why production cars never look like the concept, and that’s why. We refer you to the Hyundai Ioniq 6 EV sedan. Once those sketches are done, and the final details hammered out amongst the designers, a final rendering sketch is completed.
Effectively, that is as close as the sketch will get to a three-dimensional object. Details like brake calipers and mirrors are added, and packaging of the car’s mechanical bits and bobs are more of a real-world consideration. Again, we refer you to the gallery to see what we mean.
So, the next time you see a killer concept car, know that it looks that way because that’s how designers work, and hopefully you won’t be disappointed when the production car finally debuts. And this one will have an EV powertrain folks, the haunting sounds of that howling LFA V10 are a memory of the past.
