Toyota's Open Road blog has posted a clarification concerning last week's report that three hybrids would be introduced at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show:

A report in Monday’s news indicating that Toyota might be showing a new third hybrid car at the Detroit show was the result of an apparent misunderstanding.

We’d like to clarify this: We will show one Toyota hybrid and one new Lexus hybrid.

The apparent misunderstanding was some quotes from Masatami Takimoto, the executive vice president in charge of R&D, who said that the new Toyota would be "a totally new car" and larger than the Prius.

I wonder then, could Takimoto have been talking about the new Lexus?

Although Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe announced that a new Lexus dedicated hybrid would be introduced way back in January, Toyota made it official-official in an Automotive News article released today:

Toyota Motor Corp. on Wednesday fired a fresh volley in the green car wars, promising two new hybrid vehicles and the start of lithium-ion battery production next year.

The two hybrids--one badged a Toyota, the other a Lexus--will debut at the Detroit auto show and come on top of the third-generation Prius car, also due in 2009.

Toyota didn’t give further details about the upcoming vehicles. But Masatami Takimoto, executive vice president in charge of r&d, said the Toyota will be larger than the Prius.

“It’s a totally new car,” Takimoto said in Tokyo.

It's been long expected that this new Lexus hybrid would be a rebadged Toyota Prius, but this new quote from Takimoto makes me think otherwise. Instead, it's quite possible that this new Toyota hybrid might be the closer relation.

To mark the European debut of the Lexus LF-A Roadster Concept at the Frankfurt Auto Show, Lexus put together a truly spectacular video, albeit with no actual in-motion footage. Click the photo below to be taken to the mini-site:

I imagine this would have been used as a video introduction to the vehicle's unveiling at Frankfurt, and it's hard not to get excited about this concept all over again. I can't wait for the production announcement.

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Also included in this small LF-A Roadster mini-site is a PDF brochure, which is jam-packed with interesting information, including this blurb about the F-Logo:

The Lexus LF-A Roadster is the latest car to be unveiled by our high-performance F-Marque division. Developed at Fuji Speedway and the Higashi Fuji Technical Centre, our two-seat supercar concept combines technological sophistication, leading-edge engineering and unparalleled refinement. To recognise the special role of Fuji in the project, the new “F” logo design integrates some of the most demanding corners of the Mount Fuji track.

This is the first time I've seen it mentioned that the F-Logo actually incorporates elements of the Mount Fuji track right in the actual design. Top-notch.

Jalopnik has posted up a report on the various video game exhibits at this year's New York Auto Show, including a Lexus IS-F special edition of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue:

Lexus had three driving simulators set up running the highly anticipated Gran Turismo 5 Prologue that's due out in mid-April. Since it was obviously a Lexus partnership, the only vehicle available to try was the Lexus IS-F...The first day of the show, the simulator was running a custom-build platform (meaning the developers sent out a special copy of the game just for the show), but Polyphony managed to overnight Japanese retail builds of the full game to be used on the simulators. A groggy representative told me he was up until 3 a.m. waiting for the retail build and setting up the simulators to properly work with a PlayStation 3 and the Japanese game. That a lot of midnight oil for a cross-marketing opportunity.

In terms of cross-marketing, as the writer mentions, this could only be described as a coup for Lexus, there simply isn't a better game to be associated with in terms of brand cache. Subaru might have been running a similar exhibit, but featured a version of GT4 rather than the new, heavily anticipated GT5.

There may not be anything new to see from the Lexus presence at the 2008 Geneva Auto Show, but this video gives a nice and funky recap of the booth, including a very neat LS 600h information display:

Really, this just makes me even more disappointed that the LF-A Roadster Concept didn't make its way to the Toronto Auto Show I attended a couple weeks back.

I'm having a devil of a time finding my digital camera cable to pull the photos off from my visit to the Toronto Auto Show, but I know for a fact that none of my photos are half as good as this one from Flickr user Rocky413:

All in all, I was very impressed by my first exposure to the IS-F, which looks much more streamlined and well-proportioned in person than it does in any photo.

More on the auto show once I rescue my photos...