Most people considered the old Lexus CT just a Toyota Prius wearing some nice clothes. That is partially true, but the 2014 model is something more than that regarding luxury and build quality.
Hearing is a major sense for benchmarking quality and a car provides lots of sounds to tell that. Starting with the sound a closing door makes, going through the engine’s noise, wind and going up until the audio system, all are true quality indicators for a car’s built quality. And Lexus engineers took care especially of these aspects regarding the 2014 CT hybrid hatch.
Visually, the new CT 200h is not very different form what it was last year - it got a spindle grille, new bumpers, rear wing and rims but the interior is where the difference will be felt.
Clients were complaining that the CVT was making too much noise in the previous CT version, so chief engineer Chika Kako made a target out of sorting out how the car sounds. There was a total of 94 changes for the new car, with most of them regarding the engine and transmission, where engineers managed to find a balance between engine noise and vehicle speed.
Acoustic insulation has been improved and all doors now make that quality “voop” sound when closing, giving you the feeling of a solid built car.
Check out the video below, where acoustics engineer for HEAD GmbH Gunter Eberhardt tests out the new CT and benchmarks it.
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