2007 Lexus LS460

Seventeen years after Lexus introduced the first LS luxury sedan at the 1989 Detroit auto show, the company unveiled its fourth-generation flagship sedan, the LS460, in Motown. As successful as the LS400 and the LS430 have been, they have never quite measured up to the big, long-wheelbase offerings from Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, and Jaguar in terms of sheer size, street presence, and prestige, even if they often exceeded them in refinement, reliability, and quality. Now that Toyota is expanding the Lexus brand beyond North America to Japan, Europe, and other world markets, the automaker hopes to compete neck-to-neck with the S-class, the 7-series, the A8, and the XJ8 with the LS460L, which debuted in Detroit as the first-ever, long-wheelbase LS. Lexus also announced that the new LS will be equipped with the world’s first eight-speed automatic transmission, a big poke in the eye to Mercedes, which introduced a seven-speed automatic only recently. “That’s right,” said Jim Press, president and COO of Toyota Motor Sales during the unveiling of the LS460. “Eight speeds. We’re uppin’ ‘em one.”

Photo Gallery: 2007 Lexus LS460 – 2007 New Cars – Automobile Magazine