[Sykes]

Kaizen Factor just discovered that Lexus has recently filed trademarks for IS300 and RC300. The 300 number was supposed to be reserved for the Hybrid model but its missing the h in the US filings. KF seems to think its part of an engine downsizing trend at Lexus...

. A couple of new and unexpected surprises, however, turned up. On 21 October 2014, Toyota filed U.S. trademark application number 86429787 for RC 300. Almost 6 months later, on 10 April 2015, a parallel U.S. trademark application number 86593239 appeared for IS 300. That’s just plain IS 300, no “h”, so Lexus has not decided to bring over the IS hybrid to North America. To date, no new corresponding GS 300 application has turned up, but we’ll note that an old one for that trademark (filed on 5 December 1991 and registered on 14 December 1993 bearing serial number 74227417) is still described as “live” or active.

Those “300” trademarks seemingly are part of a broader engine downsizing trend within Lexus, parent Toyota and the automotive industry as a whole. A series of Toyota/Lexus “200t” and “500h” trademarks certainly bear this out (more on those in a bit), but perhaps more relevant to these “300” applications is the new, 3rd-generation Toyota Tacoma pickup truck. Officially unveiled on 12 January 2015 at the Detroit Auto Show, its official news release trumpeted…an all-new, segment-first 3.5-liter Atkinson cycle V6 equipped with Toyota’s D-4S technology, featuring both direct and port fuel injection.

 

[Lex Luther]

Certainly seems like it would be for a RC with a less powerful engine. Not entirely sure why they'd want to do that though. Is there a big demand for the RC at a lower power level?All this speculation about the 3.5-liter Atkinson cycle V6 engine is interesting, but I think that we can only see it as speculation at this point. There really isn't much info to go off of.