Lexus’ Structural Blue is a gorgeous nightmare.
By Andrew Hulse
This weekend was the All Iowa Auto Show here in Des Moines. Lexus brought out an LC500 Inspiration model in Structural Blue and I just don’t see the value.
It was nice, but, frankly, I do not think it is worth the 15 years Lexus put into it or what you would end up paying for the option.
There was plenty of scuffs in the clear coat already even after being behind ropes, just from being around. These were just little hairline scuffs, however, I couldn’t help but think about what a nightmare this paint could come to be.
Let’s just go on a quick daydream here. Imagine cruizing along in your $100,000 luxo-coupe, and a rock jumps up and puts a nice little chip on your hood. Now, you’ve stopped and been very careful to park way out while you run in for a bite to eat. You come out and, naturally, someone has parked right next to you and left a nice scratch on the gigantic door.
Getting these two extremely normal things fixed would be a horrible experience. No body shop will touch this paint, and the brave ones that do are going to end up NEVER getting it just right. No body shop will be able to do a complete job, I am not even sure Lexus will be able to do a complete repair job without having to just repaint the whole car.
The paint took 15 years to develop and takes a full day for 2 cars.
It really does look nice, don’t get me wrong. Even under the not so optimal lights at the event center, it was easily the most vivid vehicle of the hundreds that were there. The color was deep and stood out like nothing I have ever seen. A truly stunning shade of blue.
The work in the research and development center over the whole lifetime of a kid just getting his license achieved exactly what Lexus wanted, an exclusive color based off a butterfly. My wonderful photography gives an ok at best look at the color.
What makes it so brilliant?
The production process for the paint actually forms the structure of the paint to reflect only blue light. Hence the “Structural Blue” name. Most normal paints only reflect about 50% of the color, the structure in this is optimized to reflect up to %100 of the color.
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The production process is laid out in the above video. I think I will just stick with “normal” blues with how I treat my cars. Hint: I rally all of them.