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Speaker 1: Pushkin. In August of twenty eleven, Lexus held a special

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Speaker 1: event at the Concours de Elegance in Pebble Beach, California.

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Speaker 1: The Concours de Elegance is maybe the most important vintage

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Speaker 1: car show in the world, ground zero for the most

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Speaker 1: serious car enthusiasts. To give you a sense, here are

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Speaker 1: the most recent Best in Show nominees. A nineteen thirty

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Speaker 1: eight Talbot Logo, Teardrop cabriolet, a nineteen thirty six Mercedes

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Speaker 1: five forty K and in nineteen sixty two Aston Martin

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Speaker 1: dbfore GT Zagatto coupe in English Racing Green. I would

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Speaker 1: seriously trade all of my earthly possessions for nineteen sixty

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Speaker 1: two Aston Martin dbfour GT Zagato coupe in English Racing

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Speaker 1: Green anyway, and the winner is the nineteen thirty four

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Speaker 1: wasn't owned by Peter Maland it's the concourse the Elegance

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Speaker 1: of twenty eleven, and Lexus wants to give the gearheads

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Speaker 1: a sneak peek at their twenty thirteen Lexus GS three fifty.

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Speaker 1: They're all new sports Sedan. The CEO of Toyota, Akio Toyota,

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Speaker 1: is on hand Akiosan, by the way, is a serious

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Speaker 1: race car driver competes all the time. Just last year,

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Speaker 1: he snuck into the twenty four hour Induro at the

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Speaker 1: famed German Nurburgring as part of the Toyota team under

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Speaker 1: an assumed name mister Marizo. I mean, how great is that?

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Speaker 1: It's kind of like if the CEO of Nike had

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Speaker 1: a side gig as an Olympic marathoner. The GS is

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Speaker 1: as the symbol of the new generation of the Lexus.

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Speaker 1: This vehicle has the spindle, unique grill and that we

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Speaker 1: all pay much attention for elevating the big pahomas that

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Speaker 1: driving signature. That's Koji Sato, who everyone calls Satosan, president

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Speaker 1: of Lexus International. So we all the team member is

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Speaker 1: so proud that because we could create a new generation

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Speaker 1: Lexus appealing to the market. So the announcement on the

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Speaker 1: introduction is success rita well received. We could we could

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Speaker 1: get a big up rose. Oh it's beautiful, it's a

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Speaker 1: nice car. Then Akio Toyota meets with the trade journalists

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Speaker 1: and what he's expecting is a coronation. The GS is

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Speaker 1: a hit. Lexus is remaking its image. They've just had

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Speaker 1: a wave of applause. So akia Son asks the gathered

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Speaker 1: auto writers the Carnets, for their impressions of Lexus. Please

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Speaker 1: feel free to say to me so he said. The

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Speaker 1: one of the generalists told to Akio, oh, thank you,

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Speaker 1: so that I know the Lexus a long time. So

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Speaker 1: Lexus is a nice car, but I'm sorry it's boring,

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Speaker 1: he said, boring. A journalist tells the CEO of Toyota

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Speaker 1: on the sacred ground of Pebble Beach that the Lexus

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Speaker 1: brand is boring. It's a really shocked for us. So

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Speaker 1: we believe that we could create a bit of nice

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Speaker 1: car in a luxurical segment. So our business landing was

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Speaker 1: landing so good at that moment. So but one of

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Speaker 1: the generalists still us, it's boring. It's really shocked to

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Speaker 1: us why they think the Lexus is as boring From

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Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries and Lexus. This is go and see our

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Speaker 1: podcast about the many obsessions of Lexus. I'm Malcolm Gladwell.

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Speaker 1: This episode, in fact, the next three episodes are about

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Speaker 1: what you do if you are Akio Toyota and someone

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Speaker 1: calls your car is boring. Now, in defense of that

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Speaker 1: unnamed journalist, he wasn't being snarky. He was just stating

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Speaker 1: a fact in the public mind. The signature Lexus will

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Speaker 1: always be the first one that came to America in

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, the LS four hundred, which was a simple, unadorned,

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Speaker 1: elegant sedan a jewel box last forever. One of my

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Speaker 1: neighbors has an original LS four hundred. He's been parking

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Speaker 1: it on the streets of Manhattan for god knows how

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Speaker 1: many years. The thing looks like it just rolled off

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Speaker 1: the lot. It's an incredible car, but it is not exciting.

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Speaker 1: It was not supposed to be exciting. It was supposed

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Speaker 1: to be an object lesson in understated hardcore engineering brilliance.

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Speaker 1: The phrase Sutosan used was left brain. Lexus was all

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Speaker 1: left brain. And after the journalists rebuke, Satosan comes back

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Speaker 1: and says, we need to be a little more right brain.

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Speaker 1: And so when he came back, he said to all

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Speaker 1: of these guys here, I don't ever want to hear

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Speaker 1: that again. That's Paul Williamson, who was our guide when

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Speaker 1: we were in Japan. Everyone at Lexus knows the Pebble

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Speaker 1: Beach story. Kill Taylors, never boring, never boring. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: imagine that you're Lexis. You don't want to be boring anymore.

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Speaker 1: Where do you start? The obvious answer is that you

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Speaker 1: make a sports car. All of Lexus's competitors have a

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Speaker 1: serious sports car in their lineup, because sports cars are

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Speaker 1: where you struct your stuff. Calvin Klein has an underwear line,

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Speaker 1: and he has a tour line. In the car world,

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Speaker 1: boxy four cylinder economy Sadan are underwear. Insanely fast sports

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Speaker 1: cars are coutur. All the Germans have a coatur line.

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Speaker 1: How he has the A eight, BMW has the I eight.

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Speaker 1: Mercedes has esl ladies and gentlemen interducing the all new

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Speaker 1: Lexus Elsie five. The LC five hundred is more than

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Speaker 1: a new luxury bottel. It's a new flagship sports coupe

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Speaker 1: for a new Lexus. So, just over four years after

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Speaker 1: Pebble Beach at the Detroit Auto Show, Lexus introduces the LC.

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Speaker 1: If you don't know what an ELC looks like, stop everything.

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Speaker 1: Google it now if you don't want to, I'm just

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Speaker 1: going to read to you what my friend Dan wrote

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Speaker 1: me after I asked him about the LC. Understand that

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Speaker 1: Dan is the most serious car guy I have ever met.

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Speaker 1: He is a garage full of every single car you

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Speaker 1: would ever want. Nine to eleven's Clarence Ferrari's Chevy SS,

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Speaker 1: which is like the insider's inside a car and a

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Speaker 1: car that I want very badly. Anyway, Dan writes me,

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Speaker 1: I think the LC is the best Japanese design car

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Speaker 1: in decades. Stunning hate the sound system controls, but nearly perfect.

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Speaker 1: Otherwise Porsche would charge twenty five k more for that

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Speaker 1: level interior. The only thing that Dan Dan can find

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Speaker 1: wrong with the LC is the sound system controls. Now,

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Speaker 1: what do people like Dan like about the LC? It's

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Speaker 1: hard to pick one thing. The car is low slung,

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Speaker 1: has an impossibly long hood, accent notes behind the doors,

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Speaker 1: tear drop rear lights. Oh my, but a beautiful car

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Speaker 1: is only half the battle against the fatal accusation of boring.

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Speaker 1: For years, Lexus made a coup called the sc which

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Speaker 1: was on the Car and Driver ten Best Cars list

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Speaker 1: for a long stretch in the nineteen nine The sc

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Speaker 1: was beautiful, but no one ever took the sc Out

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Speaker 1: on winding, rolling back roads early on a Sunday morning

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Speaker 1: to test its limits. So what happens when Lexus intentionally

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Speaker 1: sets out to do exciting the Lexus way, which is

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Speaker 1: to say, with the same kind of obsessive dedication that

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Speaker 1: leads to car windows that close like Nigeri Gucci doors.

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Speaker 1: Over the next three episodes, I'm going to try and

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Speaker 1: answer that question, but it starts with this. When I

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Speaker 1: stought I was the chief engineer with the LC, so

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Speaker 1: when when I start development of LC, I'm going around

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Speaker 1: in the United States, the many praise Sato Son Again.

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Speaker 1: He's talking about a longstanding practice at Lexus. Lexus began

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Speaker 1: in the late nineteen eighties as a brand sold only

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Speaker 1: the North American market. Toyota conceived of it as a

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Speaker 1: Japanese luxury car for Americans. For years, Lexus would send

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Speaker 1: teams of people to the US, particularly southern California, to

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Speaker 1: immerse themselves in American car culture. We say, go and

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Speaker 1: see the genji game is a very important thing for us.

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Speaker 1: What the what's the word, what's the Japanese word? Gain

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Speaker 1: chi game? But gain chi means go you should go there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you should see something by yourself. This is a very

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Speaker 1: important thing for us to create something new. I met

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Speaker 1: many of the car guys in the United States sometimes

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Speaker 1: going to kas and the coffee. So the older praise

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Speaker 1: that people tell in tearing me, how they love to call,

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Speaker 1: how they feel I'm proud of their engine noise that

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Speaker 1: sometimes they appeal into me. Oh, hey you please hear

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Speaker 1: my engine sound? Wow? How you write it? Yeah, This

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Speaker 1: kind of emotional things as very mortumate me. Oh, this

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Speaker 1: is the culture. This is the car culture for the

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Speaker 1: car guys. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with the

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Speaker 1: world of automobile obsessives, cars and coffee is an essential ritual.

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Speaker 1: We're on Sunday or Saturday morning all across the world,

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Speaker 1: all the Porsche nine eleven people, or the Corvette people

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Speaker 1: or the Mustang people gather in parking lots to talk

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Speaker 1: about their cars and obsess about their cars, and drive

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Speaker 1: their cars and drink coffee. I once spent a guy

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Speaker 1: on an airplane who met up with all of his

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Speaker 1: Ferrari friends every Sunday morning to roam the back roads

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Speaker 1: of rural New Jersey. He invited me to join them.

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Speaker 1: I lost his number. I will never live that down anyway. Satosan,

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Speaker 1: a senior guy one of the world's biggest car manufacturers,

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Speaker 1: starts showing up at random cars and coffee meetups, which

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Speaker 1: is like if you went to your local pickup game

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Speaker 1: and there was Lebron James crazy And what does Satosan

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Speaker 1: learn at Alexis he'd spent years obsessing over engine refinement

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Speaker 1: because we always think thet DNA is the kind of

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Speaker 1: the quietness is one of the strong points of the

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Speaker 1: Alexis broun because of that, all the chief engineer believes

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Speaker 1: quite the it's bitter who is but no one was

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Speaker 1: talking about quiet refined engines at cars and Coffee. But

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Speaker 1: I'm really surprised that many car guys love the noisy engines,

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Speaker 1: but they smile, make a peak smile. So his first

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Speaker 1: thought when he flew back to Japan to build a

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Speaker 1: more exciting Lexus was what should our beautiful sports car

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Speaker 1: sound like? Okay, let's go very deep into the world

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Speaker 1: of engines and sound, and trust me, it is a

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Speaker 1: world first question. If what you are thinking about is excitement,

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Speaker 1: do you or don't you turbo charge your engine? Turbo

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Speaker 1: Charging is a way of boosting the power of an engine.

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Speaker 1: It works by recirculating waste energy back into the combustion

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Speaker 1: process super efficient. But it means and forgive me, because

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Speaker 1: this is a gross simplification that you extracted energy from

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Speaker 1: the exhaust pipes. Imagine the biggest pipes of a pipe

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Speaker 1: organ they're played by the organist's feet to sustain the

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Speaker 1: low notes. If a child plays those keys with less force,

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Speaker 1: they're not going to sound the same. That's what happens

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Speaker 1: when you turbo charge. Just listen. Here's a portion of

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Speaker 1: nine eleven without a turbo, what's called naturally aspirated. Here's

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Speaker 1: a portion of nine eleven turbo. Here. The difference here

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Speaker 1: the wine or the turbo spooling up. Now, reasonable minds

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Speaker 1: may differ on this, and there are lots of people

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Speaker 1: who love that turbo sound, but purists not so much.

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Speaker 1: My other favorite car obsessive, my cousin Jeremy, equates a

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Speaker 1: turbocharger on an engine to eating sushi with a fork.

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Speaker 1: It works, but something's not right, So you want naturally aspirated,

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Speaker 1: not turbocharged. Next question, what sounds best a four cylinder engine,

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Speaker 1: six cylinder or eight cylinder. Now, this question, of course

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Speaker 1: is rhetorical because the answer has to be eight, because

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Speaker 1: nothing sounds like an eight cylinder. It's like Pavarotti for yours.

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Speaker 1: One of the world's greatest tenors. Pavarotti was not some

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Speaker 1: skinny dude like me. Short skinny dudes do not sing

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Speaker 1: with power and authority. Big guys do. This is what

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Speaker 1: four cylinders sounds like. This, on the other hand, is

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Speaker 1: what a naturally aspirated V eight sounds like. No contest,

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Speaker 1: so you want a naturally aspirated V eight, But we're

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Speaker 1: not done. A V eight is two sets of four

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Speaker 1: cylinders arrayed in a V shape, firing up and down

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Speaker 1: one at a time in order to spin around a

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Speaker 1: long shaft sitting at the base of the engine. That

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Speaker 1: shaft is the crankshaft, and it's the spinning of the

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Speaker 1: crankshaft that makes the wheels go round. V eights, though,

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Speaker 1: can have very different kinds of crank chafts. One is

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Speaker 1: called a flat plane. Flat plane crank chafts are light,

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Speaker 1: They spin incredibly fast. The pistons fire evenly left, right, left, right.

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Speaker 1: What you get is a higher, seamless silk wine, almost

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Speaker 1: like a turbine. The V eights in Italian supercars are

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Speaker 1: often flat planes. Race cars have flat planes. The new

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Speaker 1: Ford Mustang GT. Three fifty has a flat plane. Just listen.

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Speaker 1: The ever kind is cross plane it's much heavier, spins

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Speaker 1: more slowly. The pistons that drive it are far enough

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Speaker 1: apart that all the noise of all those little explosions

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Speaker 1: inside the engine are distinct. You can hear one, then another, boom, boom, boom.

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Speaker 1: The pistons fire unevenly one, eight, four, three, six, five, seven, two, left, right, right, left, right, left,

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Speaker 1: left right, burbling, bubbling, like a pot beginning to boil. Listen,

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Speaker 1: this is a Ford Mustang g T five hundred, the

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Speaker 1: cross plane sibling to the GT three fifty. That rumble,

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Speaker 1: there's no mistaking it. That's a cross plane. V ad

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Speaker 1: Now what's better. It's a matter of taste, of course,

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Speaker 1: But serious car guys, serious ones go for the burble

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Speaker 1: and the bubble of the cross plane. It's not some perfect,

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Speaker 1: seamless jet engine. It's a human engine, complex, unpredictable, emotional.

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Speaker 1: So where does Lexus start with its LCI engine naturally

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Speaker 1: aspirated cross plane va Okay, next step. The sound coming

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Speaker 1: out of an engine is a function of a lot

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Speaker 1: more than the number of cylinders and the type of crankshaft.

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Speaker 1: That sound is buffeted and altered and distorted by a

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Speaker 1: thousand other factors as the sound ways twist their way

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Speaker 1: to the pipes and tubes of the engine. If you

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Speaker 1: look at the acoustic signature of an engine in its

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Speaker 1: natural state, it would be jagged, lots of discordant notes

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Speaker 1: mixed in with that marvelous undertone of rumble. So the

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Speaker 1: job of the carmaker is then to tune that sound

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Speaker 1: like a conductor brings together all the very different sounds

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Speaker 1: of an orchestra. Now there's an easy way to do this.

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Speaker 1: You could simply create an engine note with a synthesizer

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Speaker 1: and pump it into the cabin through a speaker. Lots

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Speaker 1: of carmakers do this. My daily driver, which I love,

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Speaker 1: by the way, except for the thing I'm about to

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Speaker 1: tell you, has a turbo four cylinder engine that tries

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Speaker 1: to make up for its acoustic shortcomings by piping fake

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Speaker 1: engine noise into the cabin through a little German gizmo

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Speaker 1: called a sound ductor. Sound ductor sounds like sound dictator,

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Speaker 1: drives me crazy. That's totally cheating. Who wants to spend

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Speaker 1: thousands and thousands on a car only to have it

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Speaker 1: lip sync its way from zero to sixty? You have

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Speaker 1: to keep it real noise shot. Yeah, there's basically a

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Speaker 1: lot of variance and frequencies, so there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: noise in between those frequencies. Yea, And you do you

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Speaker 1: want us you want to smooth that out? Is that it?

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Speaker 1: That's subtleus on again the head of lexus. Yeah, basically,

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Speaker 1: but too much sumooz is not hits your heart. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: You need some noise, Yeah, some sudden point. That's the point.

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Speaker 1: So if it's too smooth, no exciting, you start with

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Speaker 1: the underlying engine note, then we tune a little bit

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Speaker 1: so and then create some harmony. It's like a piano

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Speaker 1: or trumpet or something like. If you ride in an

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Speaker 1: LC at high speeds and trust me, we'll get to that,

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Speaker 1: you feel like you're in a concert hall. The sound

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Speaker 1: starts at the front as the car first gets underway.

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Speaker 1: Then that you push the slow through. Then you get

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Speaker 1: the g force. Then gradually the engine sound of the

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Speaker 1: intake and the exhaust is switched. It's kind of a

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Speaker 1: move moves from the front to front and back. And

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Speaker 1: how do you get this instrument to sound just right?

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Speaker 1: There's no formula. You just do endless trial and error.

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Speaker 1: You make the intake hose a little longer or a

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Speaker 1: little shorter. You vary the angle of the valves and

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Speaker 1: the exhaust pipes and repeat. I forgot how many times

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Speaker 1: we tried? Many times, Many times we create a pro

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Speaker 1: type parts and the hearing, hear the engine sound, and

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Speaker 1: then check and then on a rise and the tune again.

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Speaker 1: Many times we do. But how many can you m

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Speaker 1: not the hundred more, two hundred, three hundred more over

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Speaker 1: what period of time whole the totally that we spend

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Speaker 1: a five years, five years, five years to create one car? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: five years on the engine sound. That's a lot, but

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Speaker 1: it's not all. On the next episode, I'll Go and

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Speaker 1: See a little dive into music theory and why we

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Speaker 1: respond to sounds, even mechanical sounds, the way we do.

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Speaker 1: Go and See is produced by Jacob Smith with Emily

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Speaker 1: Rostek and Carl Migliari, edited by Julia Barton. Evan Viola

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Speaker 1: composed our theme music and mixed and mastered our episodes

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Speaker 1: special thanks to Jacob Weisberg had a fame, Paul Williamson,

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Speaker 1: the Mark Levinson engineers, and all the Lexus executives, engineers

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Speaker 1: and designers who participated in our recordings. Go and See

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Speaker 1: is a production of Lexus and Pushkin industries. I'm Mountain Rappo.