If you’re nervous right now, imagine how much more nervous you’d be if you were a big sedan. Over the past decade or so, it seems like crossovers have been coming for everything that isn’t shaped like them. Whether you like them or not, an upright two-box shape is pretty pragmatic, so it’s no surprise that large sedan sales have dwindled enough to take out several models. For 2026, the only Lexus LS you’ll be able to buy is one of 250 LS 500 AWD Heritage Edition models in America, and one of five in Canada – and you know what happens when they’re gone, right?
Right out of the gate, the LS 500 Heritage Edition is specced like a Warped Tour kid’s backpack. We’re talking black paint and dark trim on the outside, and red leather and black wood on the inside. If you ever think you’ve spotted a last-run LS in the wild, the easiest way to pick it out will be the special multi-spoke wheels, as they’re exclusive to this
Equipment levels are fair too, with a panoramic moonroof, 360-degree camera system, a 23-speaker Mark Levinson audio system, and advanced parking assistance on deck too. Mind you, prior model years of LS 500 offered cut-glass interior trim and gorgeous, folded-textile door card inserts, so it’s not like Lexus is going all-out here. A price tag of $99,280 including freight is reasonably attractive though, favorable when you consider what a new S-Class costs, but a few thousand more than the arguably more special-feeling Genesis G90.
Under the hood, you won’t find a hybrid powertrain, for the electrified LS 500h is discontinued in America. Instead, motive power is provided by a 415-horsepower 3.4-liter twin-turbocharged V6 that’s been a bit hard to love after a long history of buttery V8s. Don’t get me wrong, it makes great power, but it just doesn’t quite feel smooth enough for a flagship luxury sedan. Still, the 10-speed automatic keeps cruising hushed, and all-wheel drive ought to provide an extra bit of confidence in snowy climes.
Nothing’s been said about the future of the LS nameplate, and that’s saddening. While it’s still offered in multiple trims in Japan, it sure looks to be bowing out in North America, a quiet end to a car that changed luxury forever. When the first LS 400 appeared on the scene in 1989, it was a world-beater. An incredibly quiet, impeccably made S-Class competitor for E-Class money, it instantly disrupted the entire luxury car market. A few short years later, Lexus was outselling BMW and Mercedes-Benz in the American market, quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with.
While the second-generation Lexus LS was an evolutionary model, it still kept to the same tenets of the original, just with some improvements. There was more rear legroom on deck, available air suspension, a slipperier shape, and the same great quad-cam four-liter V8 people fell in love with. The LS 430 of 2001 was a more substantial leap forward. Not only did it have an incredibly advanced climate control system, a drag coefficient of just 0.25, and available toys like adaptive cruise control, Mark Levinon Audio, and a fridge, it was famously reliable and the last great flagship sedan that felt seriously built to last.
In contrast, the fourth-generation Lexus LS of 2007 was more of a tech-fest. It brought air suspension to more trims, it offered computer-guided parking, it could be had with all-wheel-drive or a hybrid powertrain, and featured a complex braking system with notable actuator replacement costs. However, in the midst of such technology, Lexus still knew when to do things the old-fashioned way. Each LS 460 and LS 600hL featured a paint job that was wet-sanded twice by hand between coats, and the zinc window frames were polished by humans to a mirror finish. It was a big step forward into the modern age, but there was a problem: After a reasonably brisk start, sales slowed dramatically. By 2011, annual U.S. sales fell below the 10,000 mark, with a mere 4,094 new LS sedans making it into American driveways in 2017.
That takes us to the fifth-generation Lexus LS and its complicated legacy. While sales initially buoyed to 9,302 units in 2018, there hasn’t been a year with more than 4,000 units sold in America since 2019. From the start, it looked great and offered some excellent interior materials, but it just felt like it had its flaws. In addition to the somewhat coarse V6, the interior was weirdly cramped compared to an S-Class, the in-cabin tech didn’t feel state-of-the-art, and some of the materials in the lower trims just didn’t quite feel nicer than what you’d get in a more affordable ES sedan. Add in expensive pricing, and the current LS became a bit hard to justify.
With flagship sedans on a downward trend as the C-suiters of the world turn to SUVs as their daily drivers, the writing was on the wall. Pretty soon, we’ll be living for the first time in 36 years without a new Lexus LS on sale. Godspeed, flagship. Another great chapter of history closes.
Top graphic image: Lexus
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The Car Care Nut reviewed one in his recent videos and he had a lot of valid points about everything wrong with it.
Sorry to see it (and all sedans) go. I still clearly remember my first ride in a brand new friend’s father’s LS400: hurtling down a dirt road at night on Martha’s Vineyard at 60 or 70 MPH. The ride was unbelievably smooth considering the speed and surface.
I know the third gen 430 is considered to be the pinnacle, but the second and fourth gen look a bit nicer.
I’ve never owned one, but would have liked to. It’s not impossible that I’ll have a 430 eventually, but a six-year-old Mazda CX-5 would cost about the same and make a lot more sense (for my use case).
The Japanese are so good at so many things, and awful only at a few.
I mean I think if they hadn’t made the thing look like it got fired from its previous job hunting xenomorphs because of a crippling cocaine addiction, they might’ve sold a few more. Nothing like taking your most staid sedan and giving it – well, _that_ face
Indeed. The OG is such a lovely slab of restrained design. It got progressively worse over time, but then, it feels like everything does these days. Bah.
Is this the same motor that’s blowing up in their other new cars? It sounds like it.
Also, those seats. Yuck.
This is kind of the natural order of things. As automakers evolve, the iconic cars that launch or come to define them become increasingly irrelevant, and then eventually get discontinued or effectively killed off. Volkswagen faced this most recently with the Beetle, which went from being the iconic VW and the foundation for all of its other cars, to a stylized offshoot of the Golf, to dead after 2019. Ditto Jaguar, whose big-cat XJ line first reinvented itself apart from the retro styling and then also died after 2019. And when’s the last time Lincoln has had a big cushy sedan? And even when it did, when’s the last time it wasn’t something that had to be sold at blowout prices?
Some brands have avoided this, by figuring out ways to wildly reinvent their products or otherwise keep them “with the times.” I doubt by now that Jeep would still be building any kind of Wrangler had the company not figured out to add a second pair of doors and market it as a family vehicle (even though, IMO, it’s a shit one). Likewise, Land Rover took its Series trucks and glammed them out to create the Defender, and then relaunched that model as a modern, shiny unibody vehicle that still retains plenty of off-road cred.
For Lexus’ part, the original LS 400 was a no-holds-barred definition of its brand ethos. It was quite possibly the best car that had ever been built up to that time–to such an extent that industry pundits posited that Lexus was losing money on each unit sold–and went with a top-notch dealership and ownership experience. But the quiet star of the Lexus show was the original ES 250, a hastily developed clone of the JDM Toyota Camry Prominent/Vista. The LS cast its halo over the brand, but the ES was the business case. It had enough of the attributes of the LS and it got the benefit of the LS’ ownership experience, but used far less premium underpinnings. And so it’s been that Lexus’ most successful and profitable models are cars like the ES, the RX, the NX and lately the TX, which blend pedestrian Toyota transverse-FWD underpinnings with premium materials and sound deadening. Or zhuzshed-up versions of Toyota trucks, as in the GX and LX. That’s what people really wanted. In other words, the LS did what it needed to do, but now that everyone knows what Lexus stands for, it’s been irrelevant for a long time.
And yes, flagship sedans in general are less and less relevant in this day and age. I next foresee Audi deciding to ax the A8. Genesis will be a bit more stubborn with the G90 and BMW with the 7 Series, but those’ll go, too. And then the S-Class will be the Last One Standing. Probably by 2032.
You can’t intimidate the poors with a “low” car.
Sad. I remember how new and different these were as a kid in the early 90s. It seemed like they were 50% of the carpool lane for at least a decade. These days I can’t remember the last time I saw a spindle grill LS.
I was shopping for my LS460 3-ish years ago and went way out of my way, flying from DC to Detroit, to get a 2017 for the aforementioned “buttery V8”, avoiding the downgrade to a V6 and the other “updates” in the LS500. It’s a fantastic car, especially on the interstate. Even though it now shares the driveway with a Blackwing, it’s still my unequivocal #1 ride. Truly a beautifully built beast of a car. RIP LS
I can’t see early LS’s without thinking about them being destroyed by Street Fighter II characters.
Lexus lost the plot when they stopped making the LS an elegant luxury sedan and tried making it a big performance sedan.
Despite product placements in productions such as “Suits” – where it played the part of “Generic Black Car with Driver”.
Should have stuck with the successful “Affordable S Class” formula.
Did they? Because, again, it’s not like the gen. 4 LS did any better, and that wasn’t a formula that was likely to be any more successful on the gen. 5 that has earned your ire. A car more like the gen. 4 would make a better used car, in theory, but automakers aren’t in the business of selling used cars. I think Lexus was smart to at least attempt to inject some life into the LS by shaking things up and doing it differently.
Also, we enthusiasts have to realize that sometimes the vehicles we’d like automakers to make are not the ones that are viable business cases.
You prove my point.
Gen 4 was moving into the big sport sedan direction- and people didn’t want it.
Buyers liked the S Class knockoff.
I didn’t prove your point at all.
For one thing, the 2013-2017 F Sport wasn’t all that sporty.
For another, it did make up a substantial portion of the sales, so obviously buyers liked the idea. That wasn’t what killed the LS. Nor was the move to a more sport-focused design in 2018.
It didn’t really matter what Lexus did; this entire segment was and is dying. And I seriously doubt that if Lexus had kept the LS as staid as it was from, let’s say, 2007-2012, that it would be any more successful. Which stealthy luxury cars are you seeing sell today, in any volume?
Just a random comment- had an ’08 LS for 8 years that I bought used. A buddy told me “That car will ruin every subsequent car for you.”
Yup.
I’ve thought many times about just buying an older Lexus LS or LX.
Ever just seeing the pictures in the article is giving me that itch.
He’s not wrong. My 04 LS430 I suspect is about to eat it’s gearbox at 220k. I was chatting with a mate earlier and he asked so what are you getting next to which I replied I think I’m just going to get it fixed. I really can’t think what I’d rather have as my daily and they’re only going up in price.
So, it seems that LS430 owners are both smart and sensible. 🙂
That red interior is making me feel things.
Though not quite as moderne, the crimson leather interior of some recent Mazdas also provides a fancy tickle. 🙂
BMW also has nice deep red seats, but to get them you’ve got to drive a car with an ugly nose that will cost a fortune to maintain when it gets old.
I keed, I keed! 😉
Would be interesting to see if a refresh might change its fortunes. No, it will not ever be a high seller – not made for that, but many are turned off by Lexus’ styling direction.
I think one of the biggest problems with the current LS (besides possibly the styling), is that none of its platform-mates are selling well either. Also none of them are crossovers – there are 4 slow selling sedans and 1 slow selling coupe. That seems like a massive miss for a company like Toyota. No high volume vehicle like a large crossover to amortize the large costs for developing and producing a platform.
I feel like TNGA-L was one of those things Toyota knew would never justify its costs of development, but was done as a sort of vanity project.
I could see that! Not sure if the dates line up for it’s development, but as a passion project for the old CEO. Not unlike how the VW Phaeton and it’s overly complicated engine was a vanity project for their old CEO (Piesch, however it’s spelled).
True, although the Phaeton’s engineering cost by sharing it with the Bentleys.
Anecdotal, but when I was waiting on some service at my local Lexus dealership a year or so ago, I overheard a couple trading in a LS460 discussing the LS500 and deciding on an ES because the LS didn’t feel special enough to justify the price difference. At the time I wasn’t sure if that was a slam of the LS or a compliment to the ES, but now it seems apparent which it was.
Though it’s no LA, apparently even the base Toyota Camry (which is now a hybrid, like all Camrys) feels sort of Lexus-like in its control of NVH. I’ve not yet ridden in or driven one yet, but am curious to do so.
Plus, it comes in blue.
I had a new Camry last month as a rental and was pleasantly surprised at how refined it was. However, it wasn’t close to Lexus on the noise side, as the road noise was noticeable, but I legit thought the car was a well optioned one only to find out it was an optionless base model when I looked at the online configurator. I was very impressed for $30k.
Wish I could master squrrels. 😉
I’ve only ridden in TNGA platform cars, not driven them. The reviews I’ve watched lately all seem impressed by the NVH levels in the new base Camry, but yes, I’d not expect it to actually be equal to a Lexus that costs twice as much (or three times as much if we’re talking about the LS sedan).
Still, $30K isn’t chicken feed, no matter the fact that the average new car is almost $50K these days. It seems that 2017-2020 was probably the best time to buy something new in terms of bang for the buck.
As they say, hindsight is 20/20.
Hopefully history’s chapter on that hideous grill design will close too.
In Japan, you buy a Century for top luxury.
ROTW is generally speaking very badge-snob, so instead of quality and refinement, they buy some German disaster on wheels.
Sad to see it go, it was the best of its class (except for markets with the Century on offer).
With the push towards electrification going from a V8 to electric makes a lot more sense to me than going from a V8 to a turbo V6. Spit out all of the power and efficiency figures you want, but consumers will see that as a downgrade. With a BEV LS you would also have a great opportunity to throw that Predator grill in the crusher where it belongs.
Problem is, they only really need one sedan, and the ES makes a lot more sense to keep around. In fact, that model is getting an all-electric variant.
I’m even surprised the IS is getting another refresh and sticking around for 2026. But the LS’ days were numbered.
My dad bought a 1989 LS400 when they first came out to replace his Cadillac Allante(!) – it felt like it came from another planet. The interior was vault silent, the electroluminescent gauges were stunning, and as others have stated the fit and finish were impeccable. It’s really hard to overstate what a meteor strike this thing was, especially at the likely illegally dumped price of $35k. For comparison a Mercedes 560SEL cost $75k+. It wasn’t surprising that once the market took off on this the price shot up almost $20k.
It’s a shame that the executive luxury sedan is a dying breed. The current generation LS feels very much like Lexus was going bonkers on making this as artisanal and ‘Japanese’ as possible, almost like the automotive equivalent of a Grand Seiko watch.
It might not have been illegally dumped, rather Mercedes pricing in the US in the ’80s was way, way above where it was in Europe. Monopoly pricing, in effect, while Cadillac was mired in a lost decade of stagnant styling and bad engines with Lincoln only slightly better, with corporate Ford engines that meant you got even less for your money over a Crown Vic than Caddy gave you over a Caprice but at least it was reliable.
Deeper question: did Lexus change, or did ‘luxury’ change?
In 1989, this was one of the finest cars money could buy. The flashiest? Absolutely not. In terms of bespoke quality? It basically upended things.
The definition of luxury has changed from 1989 to today.
I’m not sure how many luxury cars could go a million miles are coming out of assembly plants today. Ironically, I’d put money on a compact car or work pickup truck doing that feat today before many luxury vehicles.
Maybe Cadillac of the 1970s had ‘luxury’ right all along: festoon the barge with gee-gaws and tacky party tricks, then sell (er, maybe lease) the ‘rich’ owner another in three years with whatever party tricks the new one has after the current one has started its decline into unreliable decrepitude.
At least the Lexus’ bespoke quality eventually filtered down into Camrys and Corollas. So, if there’s a legacy to be had, perhaps the improvement in quality of working-class mobiles was it.
All the luxury features are just purposely disabled via software on the lower trims.
For Tesla, perhaps. For other automakers, not so much. There really are often tons of parts differences between low- and high-trim vehicles. You’ll find that out if you try to google something like “retrofit adaptive cruise to a 2020 G20 3 Series.” In that case, you’ll need a different ABS pump, an additional ECU, the radar, the brackets, a different steering wheel (or at least a different bezel with added buttons) and wiring harness modifications. And that’s before you get into the software and coding aspect.
A lot is still disabled via software, it’s just hardcoded software. The car has all the sensors and processing power to run a certain feature, but they went and made a different ECU, complicating their assembly line, to not include it. Knowing they they will easily make the money back by forcing people to go to a higher trim for 1 feature.
Radar cruise control isn’t a great example, because obviously you need the radar.
I think luxury has changed. These days, just buying a new car is a luxury and the gap between most mass market cars and a luxury car have never been smaller. But, I’d also argue that most “luxury” cars are just premium cars and a luxury car is a Rolls Royce and the like. Even most BMWs and Mercedes I’d consider premium cars except for a 7 Series or S Class.
Mercedes’ brand of luxury definitely changed. Light-up grill stars. Projected puddle lamp stars. They went from “Engineered like no other car in the world” to “The best or nothing,” which sounds like something an aging mobster says to the guy who hands him a wine list.
Even the lowly Corolla hyrid on the TNGA platform (I think) benefits a lot from the march of time/progress w/NVH reduction.
Shame.
The LS used to beat the S class, 7 series and A7 at their own game. The LS400 came out when Cadillac was going down in reliability, and started to beat the Germans handily (okay, later DTS models with the Northstar head bolts fixed can be reliable but still do NOT match up to the QC of Lexus).
The LS400, 430 had amazing reliability. The LS460 had some issues, but still was reliable.
The LS500? Well, a mixed bag. They could have used the 5.0 from other Lexus cars, such as the LC, and hybridized it to create an INCREDIBLY RELIABLE unit. But, sadly, this was not to be.
The CT6 failed against the Germans too, and was, well…not up to Lexus QC. But it still is cheaper to maintain than the Germans.
FWIW, the LS 600h had a hybridized version of the 5.0, and that powertrain was more recently used in the final Century sedan. I had a 2008 LS 600h L. It was alright. Would’ve been better if the previous owner had driven it more frequently and it hadn’t required a $4,200 refurbished traction battery.
I though the Century was still in production with a V8. At least for Japanese government officials.
You’re right. The Century Limousine (sedan) is still in production. I’d thought it had been replaced by the Century SUV, which I take a dim view of, on account of the fact that it’s on the same transverse-FWD platform as such decidedly unexotic cars as the Camry, RAV4 and Highlander.
And yes the Century Limousine has the 5.0/hybrid system that was formerly in the LS 600h and 600h L. For what it’s worth, Toyota describes that powertrain as having a CVT. It’s technically got infinite ratios, but only because it’s the 8-speed with a motor-generator in place of the torque converter.
I was turning wrenches when the LS appeared in 1989. The first time I touched one, it was like every other car I’d ever touched was a complete pile of shit.
I had been impressed by the build quality and materials on the Cressida, but this was otherworldly, so over-the-top. Those fancy gauge needles blew my mind.
Yah, the reflective/projected gauges were so impressive at the time.
RIP Lexus LS 🙁
It’s been around my whole lifetime, here’s hoping I outlive it by a ways, haha!
I forgot to mention that Lexus cars of the 90s and 00s were VERY POPULAR with rappers, hip hop stars, pop music stars as well.
The LS400 was probably the car that STARTED HIP HOP music. Even some of the newer hits seem to praise this car.
Now? Most stars seem to have moved past Lexus and Cadillac to the Germans and British.
“The LS400 was probably the car that STARTED HIP HOP music.”
Yeah – All those guys wearing Lexus hood ornaments on chains around their necks in the 80’s really knew what they were doing.
Oh wait – That wasn’t Lexus.
That was Mercedes-Benz.
So Lexus followed after Mercedes Benz….I see.
Hip-hop music started some 15 years before Lexus ever existed
I think most rappers were interested in the LS, LX and GS.
But that was in the 90s and 00s.
“Or the Lexus, LX, four-and-a-half, bulletproof, glass tints if I want some a**”
— Biggie, Hypnotize.
“Let’s hop in the GS 3; I got chronic by the tree”
— Biggie, Big Poppa
“I’m in the SC four-double-oh, sitting real lo’, stick on the flo'”
— E40, Sideways
Yes. Some modern rap songs in the 2020s still surprisingly contain references to Lexus cars.
I think expensive cars in rap videos jumped the shark when that butchered, doorless Maybach was doing donuts in a parking lot.
Look how classy and stately they used to look. The Predator grill ruins everything.
That grill is the worst thing in automobile design, second only to squinty slanty headlights,
I’m SO with you
I make myself feel better whenever I see one by hearing Arnold say “You are one ahgly mothah fuckah” in my mind. Immediately followed by “Get to da choppah!” of course.
This is irrelevant, but I used to like him, but now I don’t. He never owned a Lexus anyway.
I think the Notorius B.I.G, Biggie Shorts were interested in Lexus (although if you look at some of his music videos, an FJ80 Land Cruiser also features, so evidently Rappers liked them too).
I feel like Toyota/Lexus also have had more blockbuster roles in films (aside from Ford, Nissan (the GTR), and the Suburban , which I won’t discuss and which is not in the same category( minus the grenades and valve body problems that have been beaten to death)).
One I can remember is the Toyota Prado Scence in Bonds’ No Time to Die.
The other is the Hilux N70 used in one of “The Expendable Films”.
The Camry in “The Bourne Legacy”.
The Hilux N70 that one of Blofeld’s minions used to ram Monneypenny’s Jaguar in Spectre.
Lastly, the FJ60 in Transformer’s Age of Extinction. And in the Terminal List. The many LC70s used in “Wolf Creek”.
I live in DC and never, ever see these — and you’d think this would be a good market for Lexus, as what many Washingtonians want when shopping for luxury is something with quiet prestige. Except that isn’t Lexus anymore — everything they build is intensely over-designed. There’s no stealth or restraint. It’s just noise, and it’s ugly.
Over designed? It’s more like the designer gave up on the front end and just scribbled and crosshatched a placeholder design and got hit by a bus while crossing the street to get lunch. Someone went to the poor guy’s desk and said it was good enough.
That’s my charitable hypothesis, maybe it looks that way on purpose.
Okay, hideously designed.
They wanted to call back to toyota’s heritage of making looms, so the grill is supposed to be a spindle. No one stopped to ask if that would look horrible as a grill
Gee, should have used the heddle, it looks like a grill to start with.
Also I can’t remember any spindle that looks like that.
A large portion of DC needs to drive something American for… reasons, and the only real entries are the Escalade and Navigator.
I see a lot of Mercedes, BMWs, Land Rovers, etc. What I don’t see are Lexuses.
There aren’t many LS sedans here in Qatar too.
For that price, people seem to prefer the Germans (even with their expensive-to-maintain overengineered designs).
I see more LXs and Escalades than LS sedans.