Remember when minivans were not exactly status symbols? Lexus apparently thinks people can be persuaded to reconsider. The LM500h is the brand’s most expensive model in export markets, with a base price of $107,000 for the base Royal trim and $142,000 for the Executive – which makes it more expensive than a top-of-the-line Mercedes S-Class or BMW 7-Series sedan.

And it’s a minivan.

This minivan may replace the current top-of-the-line Lexus in this market, which is and has been, for decades, the LS series sedan. It is being retired after the end of the 2026 model year. Could a minivan take its place? It already has – in export markets.

To be fair, it is an extremely posh minivan. It has a real wood steering wheel, reclining (and massaging) passenger seats, a beverage chiller and a 48 inch LCD display for the passengers to gawp at as the van rolls down the road. But still – it’s a minivan. One that hasn’t even got a six cylinder engine, by the way – forget a V8 (which the retiring Lexus flagship sedan, the LS, used to come standard with). Instead, what you get for $142,000 is a 2.4 liter turbo-hybrid-augmented four cylinder engine – because naturlich people who can afford to spend $142,000 on a vehicle are “concerned” about gas mileage.

All that’s missing from this clown show are the actual clowns – who ought to be hired to spill out of the side doors in the commercial for this thing.

Will people buy it? Well, about 85 percent of the populace apparently bought the “COVID” drugs.

Marketing (and social pressure) can work meerakuhls! Still, it calls to mind that scene in the movie, Rob Roy, in which the Marquess of Montrose – played with brilliance by John Hurt – checks Archie, his henchman, played with equal brilliance by Tim Roth: Do you take me entirely for a whig? – that is, an idiot –  the Marquess asks Archie, who expects the Marquess to believe his sudden wealth came from winning at cards rather than skullduggery.

Some will remember the brilliance of the marketing campaign that sold the Chrysler Cordoba – say it like Ricardo Montalban said it – back in the mid-1970s. Especially the line about “soft, Corinthian leather.” Some consider this the apotheosis of cheesy marketing, in part because of the hilarious disco suit worn by Montalban and in part because there was no such thing as “Corinthian” leather. It was in fact New Jersey leather. “Corinthian” was marketing. It sounded good, though – which is why the marketers invented the term. But – looking back – the Cordoba was far less cheesy than this six figure minivan.

For one, the Cordoba was a large, handsome car made of steel rather than plastic – with substantive and actually chromed chrome bumpers. Today, “chrome” is cheesy because it is plastic  and even six figure cars get the real thing anymore. The same is true under the hood. The ’75 Cordoba came standard with a V8 engine and there were two (larger) optional V8s available. In 1975 – the Cordoba’s first year – four cylinder engines were what you got in economy cars, such as a Pinto or Datsun B210.

Fast-forward fifty years and look how much less you get for so much more. Even if you’re one of the few who can afford a six figure new vehicle.

Top-of-the-line luxury sedans from Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Lexus come standard with little sixes and they are also smaller than the Cordoba, which is a real measure of the enshitification of things. You may recall that Chrysler marketed the Cordoba as the “new small Chrysler,” which it was – relative to the massive Imperials and Newports of prior years. But – measured by today’s enshitified standards, the Cordoba was a huge car. It was 215.3 inches long. To get a sense of this, a  2026 Mercedes S-class sedan (which is the largest sedan Mercedes makes) is all of of 209.5 inches long. By the standards of 1975, a 2026 S-Class Mercedes sedan – which has a base price of $119,500 by the way – would have been considered a mid-sized car at best, something in the same general class as a mid-1970s Chevy Nova. A mid-1970s Nova did not cost six figures, either – though you did get a standard six cylinder engine in the Nova, just like you do in a new S-Class.

By the way, the base price of a ’75 Cordoba was $5,580 – which according to the government’s inflation calculator, is the equivalent of $35,366 in 2026 dollars.

Marvel at the enshtification.

Fifty years ago, you could have bought a brand-new V8-powered Chrysler – with Corinthian leather – that was larger and arguably statelier and more actually elegant than a plastic-draped, fake-chromed six-figure new Mercedes – for about a third as much in real buying-power dollars.

Or a fourth as much as something like this new enshitified Lexus minivan.

It’s the perfect vehicle for an evening out at Taco Bell.

. . .

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