We talked to Lexus of Auckland City manager Peter Carleton about what he believes makes the Lexus brand distinctive and special.
What does the Lexus brand mean to you?
Lexus is the epitome of Japanese products - refined, exciting, thoughtful, durable, luxurious, brave, reliable, intelligent, craftsmanship.
What are the latest models of Lexus in your Ponsonby showroom?
We have the brilliant new Lexus LC500 - a spectacular new Grand Touring Coupe built on the next generation Lexus chassis - the coupe emanated from a design concept that was appreciated by so many that they had to build it to satisfy world demand. They all said “great design” please build it, never expecting the actual vehicle and the concept to be so close.
The LC500 is being built in the Motormachi plant in Japan (the plant that built the legendary bespoke Lexus LFA). This plant is small and has the ability to hand build in limited numbers this very special vehicle at very high quality as it is led by the best Takumi [master craftsmen] in the Lexus production team.
How does Lexus maintain good environmental practices?
Lexus of Auckland City is Enviro-Mark Gold Certified which is New Zealand’s original environmental certification programme. Enviro-Mark provides the resources and support you need to implement a credible and effective environmental management system.
To be a certified gold member you must be consistent with your organisation’s environmental policy statement and ensure your organisation has a comprehensive and detailed plan for managing its identified risks and emergencies and is making measurable improvements to its environmental performance.
How many staff do you have and what roles do they cover?
We currently have 19 staff looking after our Lexus clients and we are a full service vehicle dealership. Our intention is to provide each of our clients with ‘5 star hotel’ levels of service and comfort and from the feedback we get, we not only meet these high standards but we regularly exceed them.
In front of house are Claire Logue and myself. Our sales team is made up of Karl MacKinnon, Ryan Stamp, Erin Kelly, Helena Mitchell, Ben McGroarty, Tom Krishna, Sandra Allan and Richard Nguyen. The after sales team includes Graeme Cave, Martin Ford, Dean Ball, Tim Metcalf, Lafaele Tuaopepe, Robert Ferguson, Daniel Franich, Albert Goh and Allen Rae.
LEXUS OF AUCKLAND CITY, 29 Great North Road, T: 09 370 0227, www.lexus.co.nz