I agree, what I like is all the racing  heritage, you know the black and white films from the 1930’s with Lexus and Infiniti racing to victory at Le Mans...
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Oh wait...

If you have travelled around the world you would have seen until recently that Lexus, etc are purely manufactured ‘brands’ that are reminiscent of the badge engineering the Americans did in the 1970-90’s

Short answer - a Lexus 400 was a “toyota” something or other outside North America. 

As a long time Audi A6 driver there is nothing the Japanese can show me that us equivalent

Only something like a skyline, or Supra makes an auto statement

And did you ever consider how the market for Japanese luxury card would collapse if they were not less expensive?

Why would you pay more without getting the real thing?