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Rearview Mirror: How the Japanese got glam

Acura, Infiniti and Lexus took on the luxury giants

Jil McIntosh
Mar 06, 2019  •  April 21, 2021  •  4 minute read  •  Join the conversation
1987 Acura Legend Coupe
1987 Acura Legend Coupe Photo by Acura

When Japanese automakers initially arrived in North America, they came with tiny, cheap, and underpowered cars few took seriously. Even as they gained a significant foothold, they were still pretty basic transportation.

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So, there were several smirks of disbelief when it was announced in the 1980s that the Japanese were launching luxury brands into the market. Lexus is the current sales leader in Canada, but it wasn’t the first of the three to make the leap.

Toyota and Nissan — known then as Datsun — brought their first vehicles to the U.S. in 1958. Honda was the latecomer: It set up a motorcycle subsidiary in California in 1959, but waited a decade before bringing its tiny 600 two-door sedan over. Still, it was the first to launch a luxury brand with Acura in 1986, followed three years later by Lexus and Infiniti.

While it was certainly a radical departure from what the companies were selling over here, it wasn’t exactly unknown territory for them. In Japan, wealthy executives had long been driven around in relatively large and luxurious cars like the Toyota Crown, and Nissan Cedric and Gloria.

  1. 1986 Acura Legend Sedan
    1986 Acura Legend Sedan Photo by Acura
  2. 1986 Acura Integra Coupe
    1986 Acura Integra Coupe Photo by Acura
  3. 1986 Acura Integra RS
    1986 Acura Integra RS Photo by Acura
  4. 1996 Acura SLX
    1996 Acura SLX Photo by Acura
  5. 1995 Acura NSX-T
    1995 Acura NSX-T Photo by Acura
  6. 1995 Acura Integra GS-R Coupe
    1995 Acura Integra GS-R Coupe Photo by Acura
  7. 1991 Acura NSX
    1991 Acura NSX Photo by Handout /Acura
  8. 1988 Acura Legend Sedan
    1988 Acura Legend Sedan Photo by Acura
  9. 1988 Acura Integra LS
    1988 Acura Integra LS Photo by Acura
  10. 1987 Acura Legend Coupe
    1987 Acura Legend Coupe Photo by Acura

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Planning for Acura began in 1981, and the brand was officially announced in 1984. The name was derived from “acu,” a Latin term indicating something built with precision. Acura launched with the four-cylinder, hatchback-styled Integra and the larger, V6-powered Legend sedan. The Integra was based on the Honda Civic’s platform, while the Legend came out of a joint venture with Britain’s Austin Rover, which sold its version as the Rover 800/Sterling 825. Both Acura models were front-wheel drive, and came with a five-speed manual or four-speed automatic.

The stroke of genius was setting up a unique Acura dealer network of upscale stores, rather than offering them alongside mainstream models in existing Honda dealerships. Sixty Acura dealers opened in America on March 27, 1986, and by the end of the year there would be 150 stores. The following year, twenty dealers opened in Canada.

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The venture was a success, and in 1987 — its first full year of sales — Acura sold 109,470 cars in the U.S. While that was less than half of what front-runner Cadillac moved that year, Acura wasn’t that far off Lincoln’s sales of 120,091 — and the Japanese newcomer easily topped what BMW and Mercedes-Benz sold, by close to 20,000 units each.

  1. 1990 Lexus LS 400
    1990 Lexus LS 400 Photo by Lexus
  2. 1990 Lexus LS 400
    1990 Lexus LS 400 Photo by Lexus
  3. 1999 Lexus RX 300
    1999 Lexus RX 300 Photo by Lexus
  4. 1994 Lexus GS 300
    1994 Lexus GS 300 Photo by Lexus
  5. 1994 Lexus GS 300
    1994 Lexus GS 300 Photo by Lexus
  6. 1992 Lexus ES 300
    1992 Lexus ES 300 Photo by Lexus
  7. 1991 Lexus ES 300
    1991 Lexus ES 300 Photo by Lexus
  8. 1990 Lexus ES 250
    1990 Lexus ES 250 Photo by Lexus
  9. 1990 Lexus ES 250
    1990 Lexus ES 250 Photo by Lexus
  10. 1999 Lexus RX 300
    1999 Lexus RX 300 Photo by Lexus

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Acura might have been first, but the others weren’t far behind. In 1983, Toyota chairman Eiji Toyoda instructed his engineers to come up with vehicles that would challenge the German automakers — and when the LS 400 was launched, American auto writers were taken to Germany to drive it on the country’s high-speed highways.

Equipped with a V8 engine, 250 horsepower and rear-wheel-drive, the LS 400 contained most of the features found in the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and BMW 7 Series, but at almost half the price. To avoid having a one-car showroom at its debut, Lexus also offered the V6-powered ES 250, an entry-level model based on the Toyota Camry platform. The two models went on sale in September of 1989 at 81 American dealers.

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Nissan initially brought together a top-secret team to create its luxury division in 1985, and opened its showrooms two months after Lexus in 1989. Its first offering was the V8-powered Q45 sedan, complete with available four-wheel steering and active hydraulic suspension, and with cooling technology that allowed for styling without a grille.

It was followed by the small and short-lived M30 coupe and convertible, and by the entry-level G20 and midsize J30. Infiniti’s sales got off to a slow start but gained momentum with the introduction of the 1996 I30. Sharing its mechanicals with the Nissan Maxima, it soon accounted for more than half of the brand’s sales.

  1. 1990 Infiniti Q45
    1990 Infiniti Q45 Photo by Infiniti
  2. 1997 Infiniti Q45
    1997 Infiniti Q45 Photo by Infiniti
  3. 1999 Infiniti G20
    1999 Infiniti G20 Photo by Infiniti
  4. 1997 Infiniti QX4
    1997 Infiniti QX4 Photo by Infiniti
  5. 1997 Infiniti Q45
    1997 Infiniti Q45 Photo by Infiniti
  6. 1997 Infiniti J30
    1997 Infiniti J30 Photo by Infiniti
  7. 1999 Infiniti Q45
    1999 Infiniti Q45 Photo by Infiniti
  8. 1990 Infiniti Q45
    1990 Infiniti Q45 Photo by Infiniti
  9. 1997 Infiniti I30
    1997 Infiniti I30 Photo by Infiniti
  10. 1997 Infiniti I30
    1997 Infiniti I30 Photo by Infiniti

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The American market underwent a massive change in the early 1990s when buyers, wooed by vehicles like the Ford Explorer and Jeep Cherokee, went mad for SUVs. Japanese automakers scrambled to catch up with sport-utes of their own, and their luxury divisions weren’t going to sit out the craze. Lexus brought out its LX 450 for 1995, a version of the Toyota Land Cruiser, and followed it up with the RX 300 in 1997. Acura’s first offering was the 1996 SLX, a thinly-disguised version of the Isuzu Trooper; it was later replaced with the Pilot. Meanwhile, Infiniti plumped up the Nissan Pathfinder to create the 1997 QX4.

The decade also saw Acura become the first import luxury brand to build in the U.S., when it started producing the CL Coupe at Honda’s plant in East Liberty, Ohio in February 1996. In 2003, Lexus built its first vehicle outside of Japan when the RX 300 rolled off the line at Toyota’s factory in Cambridge, Ontario.

The three brands are still around, of course, but there were supposed to be four. Mazda planned to launch its Amati luxury division in 1994, but during the brand’s development, the Japanese stock market crashed. Already spending heavily on expansion, Mazda launched a press conference in Hiroshima in 1992 to announce that even before it got off the ground, Amati was over.

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