Put it down to weird-word mind glut. I admit to confusion. And if you are like me, Toyota and Nissan have a problem with their blockbuster entries in the luxury-car sweepstakes.
I have immersed myself in the two cars and still have to think twice before I know that Nissan makes Lexus and Toyota makes Infiniti, or vice versa.
Vice versa wins (I stopped to think), but the befuddlement over names may be the only serious difficulty that Toyota has with its new Lexus.
Several weeks ago I was in love with Infiniti and now my fickle heart has been won by the only serious competition. When you get behind the wheel of a Lexus you can pretty much forget everything else in the luxury class.
You can certainly pay more, and you can maybe get a ''better'' car in the BMW 7-series. You can have more oohs and ahhs and fingerprints on the paint with a Rolls or a Bentley Turbo. But nobody else is offering a steal quite like the Toyota Lexus LS 400, which has a base sticker of $35,000 and will cost about $40,000 by the time you get it home.
Yes, that is a lot of money. But these are the days of $20,000 Hondas, $25,000 Fords and $28,000 Oldsmobiles, and the 40 big ones are well spent if you are in the market for an automotive bargain.
First off, there is the technology. The car has an all-aluminum V8 that is so quiet you will try to start it when it is already running. The transmission is a four-speed overdrive automatic that is among the smoothest ever. And then there is Traction Control, which means the rear wheels never spin, despite the engine's oomph.
Traction Control acts like a limited-slip differential, but better. It uses the car's standard antilock brake system, in tandem with an engine computer that closes a throttle valve to reduce power when wheel spin is imminent.
The engine itself is a masterpiece, with four cams and 32 valves. Its 4 liters develop 250 horsepower, a bit less than Nissan's Infiniti, but it moves the 3,759-pound sedan from zero to 60 in about eight seconds, and top speed is rated by the factory at 150 miles an hour.
Even with that kind of performance though, the sophisticated power plant delivers fuel economy on the order of 17 miles a gallon, city, and 23, highway. Because of the V8's high (10-to-1) compression ratio, you'll have to pull up to the premium pump, and a fill-up will take 22.5 gallons. Given the car's range, the good news is that you won't have to make the visit very often.
Two suspension systems are offered, with the option of coil springs or air bladders. The air springs are a version of Toyota's ''FXV-II'' concept-car suspension system, and a change in driving conditions creates an automatic adjustment to minimize roll, dive and squat. The system also compensates for rough roads, reducing bounce and pitch. And it lowers the car at high speeds for better aerodynamics.
Even without that, the aerodynamics are as good as any in the business. The Lexus has a conservatively beautiful body whose rounded contours produce a coefficent of drag of only .29. And the interior is the exterior's equal.
Toyota has taken bits and pieces from hither and yon, and the car has almost everything. What it doesn't have is the four-wheel steering offered by Infiniti, and if you need to turn on a dime then you ought to buy Nissan. Otherwise, Toyota has it all, from power headrests to a flat emergency key for your newly depleted wallet.
Leather costs $1,400, and Traction Control will be another $900. A 140-watt Pioneer sound system, which features a six-disk CD changer in the low-liftover trunk, is the basic audio equipment, but you can get a 220-watt Nakamichi system if you really want to one-up the world.
Another nice interior feature is the computer that memorizes preferred positions for the driver's seat, the sideview mirrors, the adjustable seat-belt anchor and the wheel, which courteously moves up and out of the way when you remove the ignition key.
The leather-wrapped wheel also has power controls to make it tilt and telescope. Maybe the best thing about the wheel, though, is the horn, which is proper and safe. Unlike all the other cars with airbags in the hub of the wheel, there are no tiny and hard-to-find buttons. Toyota has found a way to make the entire hub serve as the button.
And then there is the dashboard, as good looking as any I've seen. The instrument panel uses lighted white needles and white digits behind smoked glass. The analog gauges are complimented by warning lights as usual, but this time the lights are projected onto the smoked glass to catch the driver's attention, a nice piece of technology that imparts a three-dimensional feel.
Among the gauges is a 160-m.p.h. speedometer, and Toyota says each car is tested at something more than 100 m.p.h. before it goes into the showroom. The point, the company adds, is that capability at such speeds translates into superb performance in the low and mid-ranges.
Neither Lexus nor Infiniti has any trouble achieving speeds that will irritate the troopers, but there is a very different feel to the two sedans.
Infiniti is stiffer, more like Mercedes. Lexus is silkier. But both are super cars and the price is much the same. You just have to remember which is which.