THE NAME BEHIND THE BRAND
ANTHONY MINICHELLO
SCHF & WILBURY’S TRAVELS
SYDNEY CITY LEXUS INSIGHT
EXCITEMENT IS ELECTRIC
Sydney City Lexus is proud to announce the launch of a Special Edition all Battery-Electric RZ600e F Sport performance model.
It is the absolute epitome of what is achievable with advanced electrification technologies allied with aerodynamic design.
The RZ600e F Sport becomes the flagship of our Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) line, and the first Lexus BEV-dedicated model.
We launched the RZ550e F Sport only last year with a comprehensively renewed BEV system.
This special edition elevates the core strengths of the RZ’s driving dynamics even more. Higher motor output provides even more power. Maximum output is 313kW.
A new and startling aerodynamic package creates substantially more downforce and reduces drag.
Brake rotors have been enlarged to 20 inches, optimised in their control for sports driving.
You just have to see the RZ600e F Sport to believe it.
It’s a BEV sitting on stunningly beautiful wide wheels with an interior that conveys sporting character at its zenith.
Those who’ve driven it say the steer-by-wire system, enhanced by Lexus Interactive Manual Drive, creates a driving experience which is quite outstanding.
Importantly, Lexus is claiming a driving range of 525km, which for a sports vehicle is impressive.
THREE SHADES OF GREEN
Rising fuel prices and supply constraints have substantially accelerated demand for alternative power sources. That’s not a PR line, but a harsh reality, and not necessarily a good one.
Word within the automotive retail industry is that last month, ‘no brand distributors’ (companies you’ve never heard of) had thousands of battery electric cars sitting at grass. Now they have none.
‘Sitting at grass' is industry jargon for cars trapped in the wholesale system, unable to be moved to a dealership because there are no buyers.
Suddenly, overnight, that’s changed. Dealers are quoting waiting lists of up to three months.
It’s time to put the brakes on. There’s a need for caution. Many years ago, lubricant company Castrol coined the phrase Oils Ain’t Oils. Today, the catchcry surely must be Batteries Ain’t Batteries.
It's battery life that will determine the retained value of many of the BEVs that have charged out of the showrooms in response to the, hopefully, short-term current need. Already, electric vehicle turnover is an issue.
In the used vehicle market, we’ve seen BEVs with battery life of less than 67 percent. They’re simply incapable of being resold. If we trade them like that, we send them to the wholesale market.
Eighty percent battery life is the bare minimum for responsible resale, and even then, there’s a need for care over how they’ve been recharged and treated.
Lexus tests each battery cell in its BEVs for 90 days before releasing them for sale. Others, we believe, have test regimes nowhere near as stringent.
At Sydney City Lexus we are wholeheartedly committed to the move to alternative technology.
Our future is green and electric.
We see it in three shades – dark green is full electric, mid-green is plug-in petrol electric technology, and light green is parallel hybrid. The stand-alone internal combustion engine is increasingly rare.
In the future, the three shades will each claim approximately equal shares of the total market.
Right now, the spike in demand for full electric has pushed dark green beyond the 10 percent it was enjoying pre the Middle East conflict.
It will stabilise, brought about in part, by a rationalisation of the brands offering them. So many brands cannot sustain in our – or indeed the global - market.
My favourite alternative right now is mid-green: the plug-in petrol electric (PHEV), powered equally by petrol and electricity.
Almost a year ago, I loaned a client a Lexus RX450h+ (PHEV) until his special-order car became available.
When he dropped it back, he proudly showed me the fuel gauge. It was half full. I thanked him for putting some fuel in before returning the car. “No,” he said, “that’s the petrol that was there when you gave it to me.”
In eleven months, he’d used less than half a tank.
And that’s the future of green motoring.
John Roca, Dealer Principal
Crafted bythe pioneersof hybrid luxury SUVs, the Lexus Plug-in Hybrid range fits perfectly around your lifestyle. E cient electric power for those everyday journeys; reassuring hybrid technology for when you want to go further. With the freedom to seamlessly switch between the two, there’sno compromise on performance and no distance is too great.
Guaranteed bymorethan twodecades of hybrid innovation and our signaturededication to excellence, this advanced technology can be experienced in both the Lexus and ranges. Giving you the choice you desireand the performance you expect, in an SUV that’sdesigned for wherever you want to go next.
LEXUS ENTERS THE WORLD OF ‘SPACE’ TRAVEL
Thirty-seven years ago, when Lexus stunned the world with the launch of its first car – the LS 400, the Luxury Sedan (LS) rewrote the rules on how upper-luxury cars should be engineered and presented.
Now Lexus has reinvented motoring once more. LS now stands for Luxury Space.
According to Lexus’s chief branding officer, Simon Humphries, customers are seeking a much broader response to their needs. A sedan is no longer a catch-all solution.
At the recent Tokyo Mobility Show, Lexus revealed Luxury Space (LS) responses ranging from a vastly spacious six-wheel limousine maximising floor space to a single-seat urban pod purpose-built for autonomous last-kilometre travel.
The new LS concept took a 360 degree look at all transport. It teased a catamaran with hard sails made from solar panels, and a small battery electric helicopter for personal transportation.
The LS concept was greeted with enthusiasm but regarded in the short term at least as fanciful, not capable yet of manufacture.
Except – as part of the presentation, Lexus also showed an LS Coupe concept, and now it has been announced its destined for production.
Lexus chairman, Akio Toyoda, has reinvented his V10 Lexus LFA (see our story: the name behind the brand) as a battery electric vehicle.
“Certain car-making techniques and skills must be preserved and passed on to the next generation,” Akio said.
“The value of car-making knowledge must be retained even while striving to evolve.”
While the motoring world is changing, we celebrate accomplishments that are contemporary and indeed leading edge.
The Lexus LBX Morizo is a prime example.
It’s powered by a turbocharged three-cylinder 1.6 litre combustion engine developing 206kW and a massive 390Nm of torque, through an eight-speed paddle shift gearbox.
It's, frankly, thrilling.
LBX MORIZO EMBODIES THE BEST OF SPORTS MOTORING THE NAME BEHIND THE BRAND
Morizo is a very special name.
Akio Toyoda, global chairman of Lexus and Toyota, coined it because his family would not let him go motor racing under their own brand or his own name.
He adopted the pseudonym Morizo to enter himself as the driver for Gazoo Racing, a team he also created.
‘Morizo’ in Japanese means strong and resilient, which is what Akio was being when he stood up to the most powerful family in the automotive industry.
Gazoo was a cool name he’d been using as he developed the company’s fledgling social media platform in the late 1990s.
Akio had a goal – he wanted his company’s cars to be ‘fun to drive.’
He worked with Lexus’s chief test driver Hiromu Naruse to give them what he called ‘the secret sauce’.
They were so successful that Akio won his class in Germany’s Nürburgring 24 Hour race in their flagship Lexus V10 LFA.
When Akio became Lexus’ CEO in 2009, he appointed himself the company’s Master Driver, a title that is still proudly on his business card – and Gazoo and Morizo both became part of our company’s DNA.
Morizo is a name dedicated to Lexus.
Every car we sell today is a direct result of Akio’s passion for providing his customers with vehicles of which they, and he, can be proud.
There’s a certain magic when you meet a new client who shares the same values and business principles.
Barbara Whitten, founder of Anywhere Travel, calls it Alchemy, which also happens to be the name of her luxury leisure brand, which seeks to enhance her clients’ tourism experiences.
Anywhere Travel is a major solutions provider to travel clients in both the corporate and private sectors.
“Transforming journeys from ordinary to extraordinary” is her motto, and at Sydney City Lexus, it could be ours as well.
Barbara recently took delivery of her first Lexus a UX300h compact SUV – exactly the right size for her city commutes with the occasional trip to the Southern Highlands.
“It’s so economical I keep forgetting to fill it up,” she said. We met Barbara through our partnership in the Sydney Tattersall’s Corporate Concierge Group, and she became the first member of her family to split from a long-held allegiance with a European car brand.
“My husband has one that’s big and fast, and he laughed when I took delivery of the much smaller UX,”
Barbara said.
“Now he drives it as much as he can in preference to his own car.”
Anywhere Travel and Sydney City Lexus have had initial discussions about collaboration which could benefit our clients. It's early days yet.
We first have some immediate hurdles to clear –in both cases, disruptions caused by world events.
Barbara is looking for the airline industry to provide stability in fares and scheduling.
WHERE LIFE MEETS AMAZING
Her long-term view is that it may be spring before there’s a normalisation in travel, but her outlook is upbeat.
“It's not like Covid – there is still travel available,“ she said. “Asia is fully open, and there are ways to plan travel around the conflict.”
We feel pretty much the same way. Nothing is insurmountable. “Extraordinary” is always the goal.
MINI’S MAGICAL MOTORING
Our Sydney City Lexus ambassador, Anthony Minichiello, perfectly embodies the "Evolution of Performance," a profound journey that mirrors a shift from the raw, adrenaline-fueled roar of professional rugby league stadiums to the quiet discipline and mindful focus of his current family life. This transition isn't just about changing careers; it's about a deeper understanding of power and presence.
This powerful personal evolution finds its ideal reflection in the Lexus RX 450h+. With his wife Terry and their 12-year-old daughter Azura, 'Mini' is now fully immersed in the Lexus plug-in hybrid dream.
Moving seamlessly from the high-octane energy and loud demands of the football pitch to the serene calm and "quiet power" of the RX 450h+, Anthony has truly embraced this new chapter. He's experienced life with his new wheels over the summer months, enjoying both its efficiency and its refined comfort, and now, he's ready to share his insights.
Click to watch Mini as he takes us through his summer with the Lexus RX450h+, revealing how it perfectly complements his own evolution of performance.
LUKE MANGAN’S WINTER COOK-UP
THAI STYLE SPICED PUMPKIN & GINGER SOUP
SERVES 4
Ingredients
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
4 shallots, finely sliced
2 tbsp peeled and grated fresh ginger
1 stick lemongrass, white part only, crushed and bruised
Good pinch chilli powder
1 whole small-medium butternut pumpkin, peeled & cubed
500ml vegetable stock or water
400ml unsweetened coconut milk
1 tbsp Thai fish sauce
1 tsp sea salt
½ tsp white pepper
Juice of 1 fresh lime
2 fresh kaffir lime leaves, finely shredded
Fresh coriander leaves, to garnish
Macadamia nuts, roasted & chopped, to garnish
Method
Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy based saucepan.
Add the shallot, ginger, lemongrass and chilli powder and sweat down.
Add the pumpkin and stock then bring to the boil and simmer gently until pumpkin is very tender.
Remove the lemongrass and discard.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and set aside to cool.
Pour the pumpkin mixture into a blender, a small amount at a time and puree until smooth.
Rinse the saucepan and pour the pumpkin puree back in then add the coconut milk.
Add the fish sauce, season with salt and pepper and heat through without allowing the soup to boil.
Taste and adjust the seasoning, if necessary, then add the lime juice and lime leaves.
Serve the soup garnished with coriander and the roasted macadamias.
WILBURY TRAVELS AGAIN
Wilbury, our charity fundraising mascot, thought he’d earned a justified retirement at the end of last year.
In one year, the giant bear that our dealer principal, John Roca, bought at a charity auction and turned into a welfare powerhouse, earned more than $16,109 for the Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation.
Our clients and business associates bid for the pleasure of having Wilbury visit their places of work, play, and promotion, and the funds they raised went straight to charitable causes.
We figured it was a great one-year promotion.
So, we were surprised and delighted when this year people kept asking for a Wilbury encore.
Already, he’s been adopted by celebrity chef Luke Mangan, greeting guests on arrival.
He attended the Sydney City Golf Day, granting players an automatic hole-in-one on the Par 3 ninth hole in return for a $100 donation.
And at Easter, he was in our dealership sporting bunny ears to raise funds from guests and team members alike. Wilbury is open to continuing his post-retirement fundraising in the second half of the year.
If you’re interested in adopting him for a good cause, just contact marketing@sydneycitylexus.com.au or to donate, sydneycity.co/SCHFDonate
BIG WINNERS AT SYDNEY CITY LEXUS GOLF
“Every swing is a chance to begin again.”
At Sydney City Lexus, we’re all about renewal. That’s why it was such a pleasure to recently host our annual Sydney Lexus Golf Invitational tournament at the fabulous Lakes course.
We were proud to meet and play with more than 150 of our valued guests.
And we were delighted when they contributed $5,500 to the Sydney Children’s Hospital in on-course donations. At the prize-giving luncheon, dealer principal John Roca matched that donation dollar-for-dollar.
Congratulations to real estate trio Daniel Chay and Matthew Serrao, and Christophe Serrao, who claimed the day with an impressive nett round of 50.83.
Congratulations to real estate trio (from left to right) Daniel Chay, Matthew Serrao, and Christophe Serrao.
BUSINESS IS NEVER AS USUAL
Sydney City Lexus is a proud member of Business Sydney, the thought leadership group that is helping drive economic growth in Sydney as well as enhancing social and cultural activities.
Business Sydney has been around a long time. Its antecedent was the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, which was first started in 1826.
It has recently adopted its new name to reflect its status as the leading voice for business in Sydney.
Sydney City Lexus was proud to host a meeting of more than 120 senior business leaders for an exceptional evening of insights and connection.
Mark Bouris AM, a Sydney City ambassador, delivered a keynote address. Besa Deda, chief economist at prominent financial advisory firm William Buck, hosted a dynamic Q&A.
“The continued success of Sydney as an economic and lifestyle place of excellence depends on continued meaningful interaction amongst its leadership groups,” Dealer Principal John Roca told the gathering.
“It's our honour to host such a diverse group of people, linked by a shared aspiration.”
HE’S GOOD, AND NOW HE’S THE GOAT
Massive congratulations to long-time Sydney City Lexus supporter and ambassador James McDonald, who has officially become the GOAT of Australian Group One horse racing.
J-Mac claimed Greatest of All Time status at Rosehill Gardens in March when he broke Damien Oliver’s long-standing record of 129 Gp1 victories.
“You wait, I’ll get to 200,”the jubilant 34-year-old told the crowd at the 70th running of the Golden Slipper.
But he was quick to praise trainer Chris Waller as the pair became the most successful combination of all time.
They’ve claimed 55 victories together, eclipsing the 40-plus-year-old record of jockey George Moore and trainer TJ Smith.
J-Mac has claimed 100 of his Gp1 victories in Australia and the other 30 in his native New Zealand, and that earned him a text from All-Black coaching great Sir Steve Hansen.
“Every race day, I motivate myself by writing on a piece of paper: “See it, feel it, win It – and enjoy it,” J-Mac said.
Sir Steve added: “Grab it with both hands and walk straight into it.”
J-Mac’s wife, Katelyn Mallyon, and their young daughters, Evie and Mia, were at Rosehill Gardens to cheer him on.
To the entire McDonald family, Sydney City Lexus offers huge congratulations. You are amazing role models within your sport, and for us.
CURATED CARS
So many of our Lexus guests are car proud.
The quality of the vehicles they bring to us when they upgrade to their new Lexus is proof of the care they take in caring for their cars.
Most of those vehicles are Lexus’s because most of our guests are repeat customers, yet some are not.
We are presented with a broad cornucopia of makes and models, some of which are rated as collectables.
So, we’ve instituted a curated cars division. We call it Prestige Pre-owned vehicles.
We’ve brought in Sean Williams, a noted car person who is pedantic about quality, to head the unit. Sean has worked with our dealer principal, John Roca, in previous franchises, and they share the same set of values when it comes to quality maintenance.
Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, BMW – even niche vehicles like Abarth- come to his attention.
Sean inspects every vehicle we receive and applies a rigid set of criteria to determine whether he’ll keep it for resale.
His parameters include a full 100-point workshop inspection, confirmation that the vehicle has a full-service history, two electronic keys, and, most importantly, that the vehicle must appeal to him aesthetically. There must be no bumps, dents, or undue signs of wear.
Curiously, mileage is not part of his criteria.
Sydney City Lexus does offer a mechanical protection plan for vehicles under 10 years old and with less than 150,000km.
But if Sean finds a special high-mileage case, it’s a keeper.
“Recently I found a Lexus LX with 300,000km,” he said.
“It had one owner from new, and it was sold and serviced by us throughout its first ownership.
“I felt like buying it myself.”
You can find Lexus Prestige Preowned cars on our website www.sydneycitylexus.com.au
Sean limits his stock to around 80 quality vehicles, split roughly 50:50 between Lexus and other marques.
HYBRID INNOVATION
INTRODUCING THE LX 700h: THE LUXURY OF CHOICE
Quietly commanding. Smooth while still being adventurous. The LX 700h is the most powerful hybrid to join the Lexus range. It combines 20 years of luxury hybrid innovation with a rugged 4WD spirit, giving you the luxury of even more choice when exploring your next vehicle.
