Japanese Luxury Automakers Aren't Designing Those Grilles for You

Mark Stevenson
by Mark Stevenson

… unless you’re Chinese, in which case Japanese luxury brands are definitely designing those grilles for you.

According to Automotive News, China is poised to eclipse the United States as the number one luxury car market. To get ready for that eventuality, Japanese luxury car brands are designing their cars to cater to the tastes of affluent, young, Chinese car buyers.

The reason behind the expressive designs? A lack of brand awareness is the biggest culprit, Shiro Nakamura of Nissan explains.

“It’s with China in mind because China is a rather young market,” Nakamura said to Automotive News during the Beijing auto show last month. “They don’t know the name of the brand; they don’t know the quality, the performance. So visual communication is most important. In the first encounter, you judge visually.”

However, the Japanese brands use these brazen designs as a tool to set themselves apart from the luxury status quo. Vehicles from German luxury manufacturers, which have controlled the Chinese luxury market for decades, are very much on the conservative end of the design spectrum.

As most products are now global affairs, vehicles sold in the United States wear visual treatments primarily aimed at a Chinese audience. Big, Predator-esque grilles and hoods with less-than-subtle “power bumps” are here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Mark Stevenson
Mark Stevenson

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  • CarnotCycle CarnotCycle on May 23, 2016

    "Vehicles from German luxury manufacturers, which have controlled the Chinese luxury market for decades, are very much on the conservative end of the design spectrum." Germans these days have more options than 'conservative.' Porsche Panamera? BMW 6 and MB CLS 4-door 'coupes?' Like them or not, they are not conservative designs. And these German vehicles are opposite to current Lexuses being strange about everything except the trademark design language up front. Which brings up an observation that, concept cars aside, Lexus doesn't go all the way with the grill; it is this outlandish thing glued to otherwise straightforward cars/CUV's. If one is going to be outlandish with something like the grill, one needs to go big or go home and make the whole car just as over-the-top.

    • Bd2 Bd2 on May 24, 2016

      They are all "conservative" designs - having a different bodystyle (i.e. - "4-door coupe" or fastback) is not the same thing.

  • Laserwizard Laserwizard on May 23, 2016

    I know they aren't designing them for me - I'd never have their hideous garbage near me for a reason. There is not a handsome design from any Japanese automaker that is currently on sale. Each year they get uglier and uglier. Why would I want a car that looks like it is Aunt Ester screwing "you fish eyed fool" while looking like a carp or a wide-mouth bass.

  • Jeff S Jeff S on May 23, 2016

    "As close as a blade" Victor Kiam,Remington. This Lexus grill looks like the foil on an electric shaver. Lexus could market an electric shaver with this design for the foil with the Lexus symbol imbedded in the foil.

  • Stanczyk Stanczyk on May 23, 2016

    Car on this picture is a sports-car so if it looks a'bit "crazy" ( but expensive ..) shouldn't be a problem .. (It's even good that asian-cars look oryginal, "more asian" than european or american cars .. We've got a problem if american and european producers adapt "more asian design ques than asian car producers themselves".. Chasing "ignorant, nouveauriche chinesse customer" should be "shameful and disgraceful" for these traditional car producers .. , .. but as it seems it's not so much for a big&powerful stock-market-corporations..>) ... Idea for Cadillac's future > .. so if our nouveauriche asian friends like so much "good, traditional western brands" and .. at the same time they love "ostentatious style" .. and .. Cadillac's Art&Science is getting nowhere(no more XLR's "edging sharpness", rather new "hipster-life-style" bluntness) so maybe they should come back with nice, classy "tailfins" .. >) cool, retro-modern Eldorado would be a hit in China and .. in US as well..>)

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