Biography | 佐藤恒治 Koji Sato — The Motomachi Line That Built the Lexus LC He Led

Lexus treats the LC as a design object.

Sato's official title on the car was more specific.

Toyota's executive biography lists him as GA-L platform manager and Lexus LC concept planner from June 2012.

From January 2016 the same page names him Lexus LC development leader at Lexus International.

Series production of the LC began at the Motomachi Plant in March 2017.

The first finished car left the line on 23 April 2017.

Motomachi, at 1 Motomachi, Toyota City, opened in 1959 as Toyota's first dedicated passenger-car plant.

The same halls later built the LFA.

Lexus rebuilt a dedicated LC line there and finished the interior in white so defects would show.

European-market cars began rolling off that line on 22 May 2017.

Sato became president of Lexus International in January 2020, after the car was already in showrooms.

The plant is still a working factory, not a museum.

The public face of the work is the Motomachi gate and the coupes that left it.

Lexus later said LC coupe and convertible production in Japan would end in August 2026.

That closing date belongs to a later chapter.

This pin is the line that first made the car he was paid to lead.

Photo: Evelyn-rose, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons