This new Lexus ES commercial continues the "behind every detail, there's a detail" marketing campaign:

It might not be as successful as the first riff on this theme, but the nod to the original LS champagne glass commercial more than makes up for it.

Lexus of Tulsa is in the process of building a new dealership building, and employee Austin Colbert decided to commemorate the event with this photo:

Edited for clarity: It reminds me of my '94 LS valet key, but commenters have told me valet keys are now grey and this is now the standard key design. Still, it makes me want to geek out and assemble a timeline of key styles.

Somehow this slipped by me, but the UK prices for the 2009 Lexus IS were announced earlier this week and show some significant savings over last year's model. Here's a full table breakdown, courtesy of 4WheelsNews:

Of course, the big deal here is that the new 2009 IS has just been revamped, so getting a price drop on top of the improvements is a jolly-good deal.

German TV Show D Motor compared the Lexus IS-F and Mercedes C63 in their latest episode, and no matter how tired you might be of this duel, this english-subbed feature is tops:

Just to be clear, host Tim Schrick did use the adjective "super cool" four times to describe the IS-F, you couldn't fake that enthusiasm. And take a look at this screencap:

(Just curious, this show is obviously using Top Gear as a template, does anyone else find it weird how much this presenter looks like Richard Hammond?)

Lexus sales continue to grow in Canada, with October 2008 sales of 1,126 total units, a 15.8% increase when compared to 2007. What's more, total sales for the year are up 15.6% to 12,943 vehicles sold. This number is almost equal to the annual sales of 2007, with two months still remaining!

Some other points:

• Lexus RX 350 sales are up 33.5%, with 438 sold
• Lexus RX 400h sold 129 units, for an increase of 26.5%

(On top of that, Toyota announced that Scion will begin sales in Canada starting in 2010.)

[Source: Lexus Canada]

Ouch!

October was severely unkind to the automotive industry, with almost every company reporting ugly decreases when compared to last year. Lexus was hit something fierce, dropping 37.6% -- here's the model breakdown:

The LX 570 continues to defy any sense of logic, closing in on 400% growth over last year, but the other totals are nothing short of brutal. Still, it's important to note that this isn't an isolated event in the US -- check out the damage over at Autoblog. It's no small wonder these numbers are from October, because they're just downright scary.