Sunday, November 16, 2008

Trading a Land Rover for a Lexus

It seems funny to be writing about luxury cars since I don't own one (or can even afford one), but the developments of the last few months has brought to light an odd occurrence. We all know that the economy is in as close to a free fall as any of us have seen in the last months and the big three automakers are taking it on the chin. Foreign makers are doing better but not as well as they would like.

Plans have been kicked around for almost a year for the Lexus Store of Lexington to actually be in Lexington. Currently the are located on U.S.27 about halfway between the Fayette/Jessamine county line and downtown Nicholasville, on a road that, in any other county, would be named Lexington Road but is, curiously, here called Nicholasville Rd. This road has long been the main drag between Lexington and Nicholasville and when the commercial developments began to proliferate along it, they "borrowed" the identity of the northern end for the section in Jessamine County.

Since there were auto dealers along the Fayette County portion and all sorts of other commercial properties the advertising whizzes just let the county boundary "disappear" for those accounts in Jessamine Co.and let the confusion be cleared up when the customer came in. That is how a large number of Lexington residents drive autos registered in Jessamine Co.

A few years back the City of Nicholasville annexed almost all the properties along U.S.27 (whatever it may be named) to just shy of the Fayette Co. line, for the express purpose of tax revenue. So now we know why Lexus of Lexington is now in Nicholasville and will soon be moving to Lexington.

Demolition is now underway at the corner of Liberty Rd and E. New Circle Rd. next to the Parkette, and site preparation will soon begin for the Lexus dealership. This comes on the heels of the announcement of the closing of the Land Rover/Jaguar dealer at Todds Rd. and Man o' War Blvd.

So we are, in effect, trading a Land Rover for a Lexus, or a big three(Ford) owned auto line for a foreign (Toyota) owned auto line.

Incidentally, Land Rover was recently sold to India-based Tata Motors which also holds the license to produce an air powered auto.

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