DETROIT — Kudos to the hardworking crew that set up the Toyota display at this year’s Detroit auto show.
Normally, workers would spend days prepping a stand in advance of the event. But this year, they had to tear down a booth and create a new one virtually overnight Monday.
That is because the Lexus luxury sibling brand commandeered the expansive Toyota brand space on Monday as the unveiling stage for its sexy LC 500 coupe.
Organizers rightly predicted debuting the car at the modest Lexus stand wouldn’t work.
More than 400 people flooded the LC unveiling Monday afternoon, when Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda made a rare personal appearance to show the car.
And the company was ready. It transformed the Toyota stand into a Lexus Theater, with a huge stage and hundreds of chairs arranged auditorium style.
Indeed, there were no Toyota brand cars on display at all Monday, the first media day of this year’s show. But by the next morning, the stand was up and running, populated by cars.
It didn’t hurt that Toyota didn’t have any new cars to show. Or perhaps Toyota didn’t have any cars to show because it didn’t have the proper stage.
Either way, call it a creative maximization of assets.