Yukihiko Yaguchi

Yukihiko Yaguchi is a Japanese car designer, most famous for his design of the Lexus IS-F, an unusual car for the luxury car maker Lexus as it is a sportscar.

Early life

Yukihiko Yaguchi was raised by the Japanese tradition, which is very traditional and strict. At the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Technology he studied Mechanical engineering but did not specialise yet. Even long before he studied mechanical engineering it was obvious for him to work for the Japanese motoring industry. At TMC (Toyota Motor Company) he found his first job.

Career

After he graduated at university he took part in an entry exam at Toyota and started to work with the company. One of his first projects was the designing of the Toyota Supra. He worked on the Supra Mark 1, Mark 2, Mark 3 and Mark 4.Around 2000 (a long time before the ISF project started) Toyota came with a car named the Chaser. This car can now be seen as predecessor of the Lexus IS F. Yaguchi designed this car as a mix between a luxury car and a very sporty car. The car that it became had the suspension and the engine of the Supra.

While he designed the Supra Yaguchi-san was at the birth of Lexus as a part the TMC. He spend a lot of time with the new designs for Lexus cars (especially Lexus LS 400) and soon became head of general development and planning for Lexus.In the year 2006 he was asked to manage the design for the IS F.

The IS F of Lexus is the sports version of the normal IS. For the IS F he was inspired by driving in a lot of other cars [http://www.isf-blog.com/2008/01/the-big-yaguc-1.html] . In an interview [http://www.isf-blog.com/2008/01/the-big-yaguchi.html] he said that he love sport cars but he thinks it’s a pity that the most sport cars have 2 seats instead of 4. Exactly that idea was the base for the IS F.