It should be common knowledge that the Lexus RX 350 and the Hyundai Veracruz Limited are in different classes, bought by different people for different reasons, but that didn’t stop Motortrend from comparing the two vehicles in their latest issue.

Let me save you the farce, the Veracruz is declared the winner of the two, simply by placing inordinate weight on a questionable concept of value.

Compared, the Hyundai rings in at $10,000 less than the Lexus, yet it lacks a navigation system, a backup camera, adaptive HID headlights, to speak nothing of the lower interior quality. These are not small differences: the Navigation feature alone would add $1500-2000 to the price of the Vercruz — that is, if it was even available as an option.

Perhaps the strangest part of the comparison was the criticism of the RX 350’s safety features:

Is the Hyundai chassis that much superior? No. It’s the RX’s insistence in keeping you overly safe that electronically inhibited its performance. It sensed that our max-handling performance testing was impending accident doom and lit up the stability controls at anything more than the slightest provocation. Beepers beeped, brakes braked, and the throttle was dialed out until the RX 350 knew we weren’t going to crash. This also was the case on our mountain road loop, even during moderate cornering. The Lexus computer wizards need to dial the electronannies back a notch or two.

Makes absolutely no sense to me, this vehicle isn’t a sports car, it’s a people mover. Wouldn’t the additional safeguards be considered a plus rather than a minus?

Really, dragging the RX 350 into a comparison with what is essentially a cheaper knockoff, then basing the final verdict strictly on “value”, seems inappropriate for a major car magazine. How would the Veracruz compare to the BMW X3, I wonder?

Road & Track has served up a bit of a twist with their LS 600hL review by comparing it with a Gulfstream G550, the world’s foremost private jet. A strange association, and incredibly flattering to Lexus, but the justification is this:

When the word “flagship” was coined, I’d bet its originator had neither $104,000 luxury sedans nor $46.7 million business jets in mind, but here are two shining and incredibly diverse examples that can claim the honor. Both the new Lexus LS 600h L and Gulfstream G550 are the pinnacle of each manufacturer’s lineup, and represent the sophistication, performance and technology that come from doing something very well, over time, in ever-improving iterations.

Always a more technical magazine than their counterparts, much of R&T’s review is given to the more esoteric aspects of the car. One especially handy supplement of the article is the included LS 600hL PDF, that details the car’s specs and performance figures.

After the results of the Total Quality Index survey, I decided to do a little Hyundai Youtube surfing and found a recent Azera ad comparing it to the LS 460:

My personal disdain of Kelsey Grammer notwithstanding, and the fact that there are far more differences than similarities between the Azera and the LS 460, I can’t help but admire the marketing brilliance behind this commercial.

This advert was not made to sway potential LS 460 owners to a Hyundai, but rather as a way to associate the two cars, so that people looking for a $25,000-$30,000 believe they’re buying something on par with a Lexus.

I’m shocked to say it, but I’ll have to start paying closer attention to Hyundai. Their vehicles are extremely competent, and their management are utilizing tactics very similar to the ones Toyota employed when lauching Lexus. Smart stuff.

KBB has released the “Interior Styling” results of their consumer automotive perceptions research study, and Lexus scored high in each of the luxury categories:

Luxury Sedans

1. Lexus 2. Mercedes-Benz 3. Infiniti

Luxury SUVs

1. Cadillac 2. Lexus 3. BMW

Convertibles/Sports Cars

1. Mercedes-Benz 2. Porsche 3. Lexus

From my own experience, I know Lexus would have been in tough against Mercedes in the Luxury Sedan category. Mercedes has a very commanding interior presence, and it’s no surprise that they came first in the Convertible/Sports Car category. The Cadillac Escalade interior was greatly improved in their 2007 redesign, and their first place finish in the SUV category is well deserved.

Lexus parent company Toyota almost swept the remaining non-luxury categories, with the except of Truck interiors, which went to GMC.

[Source: PR Newswire]