While not huge sellers, Lexus just loves building grand tourers. It started with the SC 300 and SC 400 in the ‘90s, followed by the opinion-splitting SC 430 in the ‘00s. The latter was discontinued in 2010, but Toyota’s luxury arm got back into the race with a bang with the LC.
The LC, sold in either LC 500 or hybrid LC 500h variants, made its world debut in 2017. It’s available as a coupe or convertible, and the best part is, it’s officially sold in the Philippines.
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However, it has been seven years since the Lexus LC rolled out, and it might be time for a successor. As it turns out, it seems that one is on the way. Carscoops reports that the next Lexus grand tourer will be based on the GR GT3 race car that is currently being developed.
Should that be the case, the next Lexus grand tourer will have its roots in motorsports. That will be a first for the brand given that it always premiered the road car first before turning it into a race car. The reason? New GT3 rules state that there must be a road version of the race car that an automaker plans on using. Think of it then as the same reason why the Toyota GR Yaris came to be.
With that, we could expect the road-going version to be a ‘saner’ version of the racer. It won’t likely have the extreme aero pack as it won’t exactly be, er, street-friendly. The hood might be taller to comply with pedestrian safety regulations, and we’re almost certain that it will be higher off the ground.
As for the engine, there’s a good chance that a twin-turbo V8 will power Lexus LC successor. Currently, test mules of the race car use a boosted V8, and given current homologation rules, the street version needs to use a version of it. And since this is Lexus we’re talking about, it could also have some form of hybridization.
