You Won’t Believe It, But The New Lexus Is Inspired And Named After Sriracha Sauce

There have always been great things created inspired by other great things, food inspired by television shows or movies, or pop culture references inspired by food. But you’ve never seen an inspiration quite like this.

This is the 2017 Lexus Sriracha IS. Yes, it’s the new Lexus inspired by the spicy red Thai sauce that has the whole world going mad. And the best part (or worst, depending on how you feel about the sauce) is that there’s sriracha in the paint as well. The auto-maker formed a partnership with Huy Fong Foods when producing the car and it’ll be available at the Los Angeles Auto Show starting today. And before you get your hopes up, the car is currently not available for sale.

How did this happen?

Mariko Kusumoto, Lexus national marketing communications manager talked about this and said, “We wanted to work with the original and were pleased that David Tran at Huy Fong Foods was open to collaborating with us. If you’re a fan of sriracha, you know that the rooster bottle, green cap, and pure spiciness can’t be replicated and fans of the rooster sauce won’t settle for anything bland. It was a perfect pairing. This is our first food-inspired car and don’t have any other foodie cars planned right now.”

Visually, it’s clear that Sriracha had everything to do with the car coming together. The paint job infuses the colours of the sauce with the red and the green and according to a press release, they experimented with a range of mixtures and methods and added the sauce to the paint to create the custom red colour. And this is not just on the outside, the steering wheel has also been injected with a Sriracha-like liquid and cast in resin. This obviously comes with a warning; “Hot Handling”. And if that’s not enough, the temperature controls go from cool to Sriracha hot. Plus, the car’s sport drive mode also has a new name; Sriracha. Seriously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2mtILDZRgI