Lexus Logo: The L Born From Project F1

In 1983 Toyota's chairman started a secret project to build a luxury car to rival the very best. Six years and about 450 prototypes later, it arrived as the Lexus LS 400.

Country: Japan
Active: Since 1989
Founded by: Toyota Motor Corporation
Website: Official website ↗

A secret called Circle F

Lexus began with a question asked behind closed doors. In August 1983 Toyota chairman Eiji Toyoda launched a project known internally as Circle F. The F stood for flagship, and the code name became Flagship One, or F1. The goal was a luxury car able to take on the very best in the world.

Toyota had a practical reason. According to its own history, owners who outgrew their Toyotas were moving on to Mercedes-Benz and BMW, simply because there was no luxury Toyota to buy. Lexus says sixty designers, 24 engineering teams and 220 support workers ended up on the F1 project. The final design was approved in May 1987, and Toyota built about 450 prototypes over roughly six years of development.

Alexis loses a letter

The styling was signed off before the car even had a name. A consulting firm came back with a list of 219 possibilities, among them Vectre, Verone, Chaparel, Calibre and Alexis. According to Lexus UK, project manager John French was doodling on his notepad when he dropped the first letter of Alexis and got Lexis. One small change later, it was Lexus, a name that sounded less clipped and hinted at luxury and technology.

The name was confirmed in 1988, chosen, in Lexus’s words, to represent luxury and high-end technology. A popular theory says Lexus is short for “Luxury Export to the United States”. It’s a neat story, but it doesn’t appear in Lexus’s own account of how the name was found.

The finished LS 400 made its debut at the Detroit Auto Show in January 1989. There was no concept car to warm people up. Lexus simply showed the finished product. In September 1989 Toyota started operating Lexus as a luxury sales network in the United States, and Europe followed in 1990.

One letter, one oval

The Lexus badge is about as simple as a car logo gets: a stylised capital L inside an oval. The LS 400 was the first car to carry it, and the brand has kept the same basic mark ever since.

What Lexus hasn’t done, at least in the official histories we checked, is publish an explanation of the emblem’s meaning or name its designers. You’ll often read that the L was drawn using a precise mathematical formula, and various agencies are credited with the name and the logo. Those claims are widely repeated, but none of them appears in Lexus’s or Toyota’s own accounts, so treat them as unconfirmed.

A second letter for the fast ones

Lexus has one more badge worth knowing. When it moved into high performance, it filed patent applications for an F emblem: a raised silver letter on black with a blue outline. Lexus says the curve of the F is based on Turn One at Fuji Speedway. It’s also a nod back to where the whole thing started, with Flagship One.

The other face of modern Lexus isn’t a badge at all. It’s the spindle grille, which Lexus says was first introduced on the GS saloon in 2012 to give the brand a new and more provocative identity. The L emblem sits right in its middle.

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From the LS 400 to the first electric Lexus

Lexus has made a habit of opening new doors, from quiet saloons to hybrids and a hand-built V10 supercar.

Landmark Lexus models, decade by decade

1989: LS 400. The car born from the F1 project, with a drag coefficient of 0.29, and the first to wear the L badge.
1998: RX 300. Lexus says it created a completely new market segment: the luxury SUV.
2005: RX 400h. Described by Lexus USA as the world’s first luxury hybrid. The same year, Lexus finally launched in Japan.
2008: IS F. A high-performance sports saloon that brought the F name to a production model.
2010s: LFA. A supercar revealed by Akio Toyoda. Only 500 were built, each assembled by hand, and the last one was completed on 14 December 2012.
2016: LC. The production version of the LF-LC concept that had premiered in Detroit in 2012.
2020: UX 300e. The first full-electric Lexus.

Lexus is the luxury brand of Toyota, built at first in Toyota’s Tahara Plant. Among Japanese luxury brands, its closest rivals are Acura and Infiniti. For more on how badges like these come together, see how car logos are designed.

Frequently asked questions

What does the Lexus logo show?

A stylised capital L inside an oval, the first letter of the brand’s name. The LS 400 of 1989 was the first car to carry it. Lexus has not published an official explanation of further meaning in the sources we checked.

Where does the name Lexus come from?

From a list of 219 suggestions that included Alexis. According to Lexus UK, project manager John French dropped the A to get Lexis, which was then changed to Lexus. The name was chosen in 1988 to represent luxury and high-end technology.

Does Lexus stand for “Luxury Export to the United States”?

That’s a popular story, but Lexus’s own account of the name says nothing of the sort. The name grew out of Alexis and Lexis.

When was Lexus founded?

The secret project behind it started in 1983, and Lexus says the brand was born in 1989. Toyota began operating the Lexus sales network in the United States in September 1989.