LEXUS CT200h

THERE IS MUCH ABOUT THE LEXUS CT200h THAT DOESN’T MAKE IMMEDIATE SENSE. For example, why would Toyota choose to introduce this new car to the media in Paris, when the majority of its luxury brand’s sales occur in the United States? And why would all of the CT’s exterior dimensions measure within a cabernet franc grape of the Audi A3—a car that is, by conventional measures, a sales fl op in big-car-obsessed America?

We Americans sometimes forget that the world doesn’t revolve around our country—and you can bet your freedom fries that the CT wasn’t designed for the U.S. market. Some other clues to support this conclusion: an unapologetically wagonlike shape; a simple, driver-focused interior; a very still suspension; and stellar fuel economy. In fact, the CT’s spec sheet is only a diesel engine and a clutch pedal short of passing for a European hatch.

In an automotive landscape often localized to American tastes (Bonjour, le nouveau Volkswagen Jetta), it’s refreshing to be able to choose unabashedly European-focused cars on our home soil. Audi might not hawk as many A3s as it does A4s, but we would bet that their buyers—who can happily squeeze their cars into teeny parking slots in Europeanesque American cities like San Francisco and Boston—love them just as much.